Education and Training Monitor 2022

Comparative report

Chapter 7. A policy focus on key competences looks beyond basic skills

7.1. Underachievement in basic skills goes down with instruction time

Underachievement in reading, maths and science is captured by data from the OECD’s PISA, with its most recent 2018 round¹⁷⁸ well documented in previous editions of the Education and Training Monitor¹⁷⁹. Across the EU, the shares of underachievement in reading (22.5%), maths (22.9%) and science (22.3%) are all quite a distance from the 2030 target of below 15% and have actually increased when compared to the 2015 PISA round.

With PISA widely regarded as the benchmark for international comparisons in educational achievement, there is great interest in seeing whether its 2022 round will confirm further increases in underachievement, or whether any learning losses resulting from the 2020-21 physical school closures will have been remedied in the interim. In this section, further analysis of PISA 2018 data suggests that instruction time does correlate with underachievement, which may not bode well in terms of COVID-19 effects.

Instruction time is not the definitive hallmark of quality education¹⁸⁰, yet there is a clear association between the number of annual hours 14-year-olds were expected to spend overall in regular lessons¹⁸¹ and the underachievement rate in reading¹⁸² at age 15 (Figure 26). Three out of the four bottom performing countries with respect to underachievement in reading are also the countries with the lowest intended instruction time at age 14 (Cyprus, Romania and Malta).

Figure 26. Cyprus, Romania and Malta may benefit from increasing the instruction time

In Denmark, which has the highest number of hours and the highest share of language classes¹⁸⁵, the underachievement rate is 16.0%. In France, with a share of language classes that is closer to the EU average, the underachievement rate increases to 20.9%. Lower shares of language classes are also observed in countries with higher underachievement, such as Greece (8.1%) and Bulgaria (9.2%).

Furthermore, there is a group of countries (Estonia, Finland, Czechia, Ireland, and Belgium) where underachievement rates are below the EU average, while neither the instruction time nor the share of language classes are out of the ordinary. These countries share a varying degree of flexibility in the allocation of instruction time (as depicted by the bubble size in Figure 26), whether it be ‘vertical flexibility’¹⁸⁶, as in Estonia, Czechia, Finland, or ‘horizontal flexibility’¹⁸⁷ in Belgium and Ireland¹⁸⁸. These findings suggest that a higher degree of school autonomy could act as a leverage to tackle underachievement¹⁸⁹.

7.2. Multilingualism may be on the rise

The EU's motto ‘united in diversity’ symbolises the essential contribution of linguistic diversity. Languages unite people, make other countries and their cultures accessible, and strengthen intercultural understanding. Foreign language skills play a vital role in boosting employability and mobility¹⁹⁰. Yet too many Europeans still leave school without a working knowledge of a foreign language. For this reason, the EU has set the improvement of language teaching and learning as a priority¹⁹¹. 

In 2016, 78.7% of young adults (25-34 years) reported they knew at least one foreign language¹⁹², but only 36.8% declared knowing more than one foreign language, the latter fairly stable across time¹⁹³. Evidence suggests that proficiency among young adults may pick up in the future as younger cohorts age. In primary education, a strong majority of pupils are in contact with a foreign language (86.1% in 2020). Moreover, the share of lower secondary students learning more than one foreign language has been increasing in recent years, rising from 46.3% in 2015 to 59.2% in 2020 (Figure 27)¹⁹⁴.

Figure 27. The exposure of school-age youth to foreign languages bodes well for the improvement of multilingual proficiency among young adults

The share of students who continue studying a second foreign language in upper secondary education (49.0% across the EU in 2020) tends to be lower than in primary and lower secondary education. Remarkable exceptions are Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Belgium, where the share from lower to upper secondary education increases by over 30 percentage points, followed by an increase of over 20 percentage points in Austria and Slovenia.

Some 60.0% of students enrolled in general programmes in upper secondary education are taught at least two foreign languages on average across the EU, compared to only 35.1% of students in vocational programmes. This pattern is observed in all countries except Italy, where students in vocational education are more likely to learn a second foreign language than their peers in general education (48.1% versus 24.7% in 2020).

Regarding the actual languages studied, in primary education the preferred language remains English (84.1%), and to a lesser extent French (5.5%) and German (3.4%). These are also the main languages studied in lower secondary education (98.3%, 30.6% and 21.4%, respectively), with the addition of Spanish (17.7%). Upper secondary education features a similar – though slightly more balanced – pattern, for English (88.1%), French (18.9%), German (20.0%) and Spanish (18.0%)¹⁹⁵.

The Commission is strengthening the central role of multilingualism by: (1) working with Member States and leading experts in language education to modernise language teaching; and (2) strengthening the evidence base for language policy, in collaboration with the Eurydice network and Eurostat, as well as with external partners such as UNESCO, OECD and the Council of Europe¹⁹⁶. For instance, results from the 2022 Adult Education Survey will provide valuable information, in particular for the younger age groups (from 18 years old).

Crucially, the question remains whether language policies, curricula, instruction and learning can actually lead to students becoming proficient in foreign languages. The next PISA cycle will include an optional module¹⁹⁷ to assess the English language proficiency of 15-year-old students.

7.3 Citizenship attitudes evolve with education

Citizenship competence is the ability to act as responsible citizens and to fully participate in civic and social life, based on an understanding of social, economic, legal and political concepts and structures, as well as global developments and sustainability. Education plays an essential role in teaching fundamental values and promoting social inclusion in order to strengthening social cohesion and democratic participation¹⁹⁸.

The 2022 European Parliament Resolution on implementing citizenship education actions called for the development of tangible and measurable EU objectives on citizenship education. The results from the 2022 edition of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS)¹⁹⁹, expected to be published in 2023, will provide a solid basis to inform such tangible and measurable EU objectives on citizenship education. In the meantime, a 2021 Eurobarometer Youth Survey sheds light on various citizenship attitudes and hints at how such attitudes evolve as young people progress through the education and training system.

Looking at the Youth Survey’s results, a prioritisation of various civic issues²⁰⁰ reveals clear differences based on the age at which the respondents left the education system (Figure 28), which could be regarded as a proxy for educational attainment²⁰¹. Young people who left early tend to give less priority to issues such as tackling poverty and inequality, improving people’s health and well-being and combating climate change, when compared to those with a higher educational attainment or still in the education system. In fact, young people who left before the age of 16 indicate, on average, unemployment as their number one priority. Young people with higher levels of educational attainment or still in the education system attribute less relevance to issues such as terrorism or online threats. Instead, they tend to prioritise civic issues such as protecting human rights and democracy, freedom of speech and gender equality²⁰².

Figure 28. Young people’s priorities shift from unemployment to inequality and climate change the longer they spend time in education

Citizenship competence has strong links to other competence domains, which is particularly evident in light of the green and digital transition (Chapter 8). Firstly, sustainability is a prominent sub-dimension of citizenship competence, and a clear civic priority for young people (Figure 28). Secondly, as part of the 2021-27 Digital Education Action Plan, the Commission has been working on guidelines for teachers and educators to tackle disinformation – a civic issue that has been gaining substantial momentum in recent years²⁰³.

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