Education and Training Monitor 2022

Comparative report

Chapter 3. A better responsiveness is needed for future decreases in early school leaving

3.1. Past successes in reducing early school leaving rates are no cause for complacency

The share of early leavers from education and training continued to fall in 2021, even if disengagement during COVID-19 may still affect early school leaving rates in the future⁷⁴. On average across the EU, 18-24 year-olds without upper secondary educational attainment and no longer in education or training amounted to 9.7% of their cohort in 2021, down from 10.2% in 2019 and 9.9% in 2020 (Figure 8). This corresponds to approximately 3.1 million young people.

Some 16 Member States have early school leaving rates below 9% (the 2030 target for the EU as a whole), with top performers being Croatia (2.4%), Slovenia (3.1%), Greece (3.2%) and Ireland (3.3%). Five Member States maintain early school leaving rates of 12% or higher⁷⁵. Early leavers are more likely to be male (11.4%) than female (7.9%)⁷⁶ – a phenomenon that snowballs into vast gender disparities in higher education (Chapter 5).

The last 10 years of progress tell a success story of positive upward convergence. Average early school leaving rates dropped 2.9 percentage points from 12.6% in 2012, with reductions of over 5 percentage points in Portugal (14.6), Spain (11.4), Greece (8.1), Malta (7.1), Ireland (6.6) and Belgium (5.3). On the other hand, between 2012 and 2021, no progress was observed in nine Member States. However, for 2021, only four of these countries have 2021 early school leaving rates above 9% (Germany, Luxembourg, Denmark and Hungary).

Figure 8. 10 years of decreasing early school leaving rates illustrate a positive upward convergence

Upper secondary educational attainment has long been regarded as a minimum threshold. An estimated 84.6% of 20-24 year-olds had at least such qualifications in 2021, up from 82.8% 5 years prior. Less than 80% of young people have already attained at least upper secondary education in Denmark (75.4%), Luxembourg (76.6%), Germany (77.1%) and Spain (78.8%). The share is over 95% in Croatia (96.9%), Ireland (96.1%) and Greece (95.7%).

These two indicators - early school leaving and upper secondary attainment - mask an age group in transition, as well as different structures of education and training systems across the EU. Firstly, at 18, all young people across the EU have reached the end of their compulsory schooling age⁷⁸. An average of 82.1% still participates in education and training, but this participation rate drops to 29.2% for 24-year-olds⁸⁰. The share of early leavers increases from an average of 7.6% at age 18 to 11.1% at age 24⁸¹.

Figure 9. Most young people with at most lower secondary educational attainment are still in formal education

Secondly, in some countries, large shares of the combined 18-24 age bracket with at most lower secondary educational attainment are still enrolled in formal education (Figure 9)⁸². In terms of early school leaving, in order to strengthen prevention and early intervention (Section 3.3), it is necessary to understand whether young people forego the transition from lower secondary education to upper secondary education altogether or whether they attempt upper secondary education and drop out before attaining any formal qualifications⁸³. While comparative data struggle to capture the difference, administrative education registers can shed a light at the national level⁸⁴.

3.2. A return to education and training is difficult and costly

Without at least upper secondary educational attainment, young people face a precarious labour market integration and an employment disadvantage that is likely to persist throughout working age. With educational requirements for entering the EU labour market constantly increasing, the social exclusion of early school leavers is only expected to become more pronounced. Only 42.3% of early leavers from education and training were employed in 2021, with the remaining share either wanting to work (34.0%) or not (23.7%)⁸⁵.

Youth unemployment (15-29 age bracket), which stood at 13.0% on average across the EU in 2021, reached 22.4% for young people without at least upper secondary educational attainment⁸⁶. It is worth emphasising that young people have been most affected by job losses due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis, with particular downturns for young people with low levels of education or disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds⁸⁷.

Enabling undereducated young people to return to education and training is particularly difficult and costly. The Commission’s reinforced Youth Guarantee (Box 9) helps 15-29 year-olds who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) find offers of employment, apprenticeships, continued education or traineeships. The NEET rate is higher among young people with at most lower secondary education (15.5% compared to an average of 13.1%)⁸⁸, but a return to formal education is exceedingly rare. Only about 10% of offers concern continued education each year, with the latest figure at 10.2% (2020 monitoring data).

Enabling a return to education requires strong partnerships between public employment services and the education and training sector. Undereducated young people may not be eager return to education, and would benefit from a more diversified continued education offer. For instance, bridging courses or second chance education programmes can help early leavers from education and training and low-skilled young people ease their way back into formal education and training more carefully⁸⁹. VET pedagogies and work-based learning (Chapter 4) may be particularly responsive to the (re)engagement of young people⁹⁰.

3.3.Future progress requires a policy focus on young people at highest risk

The 2022 Commission proposal for a Council Recommendation on Pathways to School Success links early school leaving to the ‘early warning’ indicator of underachievement at age 15 (Section 7.1). It aims to improve the responsiveness of schools to the needs of young people who may be struggling. Such responsiveness goes beyond a narrow definition of educational performance and requires a broad range of actors to become involved. This section covers three possible gaps in schools’ responsiveness.

The first challenge is the decoupling of educational performance from socio-economic status, as emphasised in Chapter 1. Ad hoc data from 2021 (Figure 10) confirm a striking disparity in EU average early school leaving rates between young people whose parents have a low level of education (26.1%) and young people whose parents have a high level of education (2.9%). This means the risk of leaving school early is nine times higher among the former group than it is among the latter. Such socio-economic gaps exist, albeit to varying degrees, across all Member States for which the breakdown can be assessed reliably. It is another sobering example of how educational disadvantage can be passed down from previous generations - a vicious cycle that education and training systems are supposed to break.

Figure 10. New evidence sheds light on parental education and parental country of birth

Secondly, new comparative data reveal that children from migrant parents or parents from other EU countries who were themselves born in the reporting country do not have early school leaving rates that are substantially different from the overall average (Figure 10)⁹¹. Only first-generation migrants and EU mobile young people face, on average, high risks of early school leaving – and the difference between the two groups is remarkably ⁹². Past editions of the Education and Training Monitor already established that, among young people born outside the reporting country, the number of years since arrival is a major determining factor for the disadvantage ⁹³. In terms of early leavers from education and training, special attention is needed for young people arriving in the reporting country during – and especially towards the end of – mandatory schooling age⁹⁴.

Thirdly, lengthy periods of physical school closures and lockdown measures across 2020-22 have put an immense pressure on the well-being of adolescents, which is – among many other potentially devastating repercussions – strongly associated with educational outcomes⁹⁵. Schools and teachers often proved ill-equipped to identify such problems, connect to the young people affected and help young people get the appropriate support⁹⁶. Future editions of the Education and Training Monitor will aim to capture the overlooked dimension of well-being at school through regular data collections⁹⁷.

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