Spain has reduced to its historical minimum the early school abandonment rate, that is, the percentage of young people aged 18 to 24 who has abandoned the studies without having obtained at least one baccalaureate or FP title. The rate stood in 2024 in 13%, as reported by the Ministry of Education with data from the National Statistics Institute. The indicator improves seven tenths with respect to the previous year and exceeds, when the health restrictions imposed in economic sectors that usually hire little qualified young people, such as hospitality, prevented many of them from working and, in an unplanned effect of the COVID, They encouraged to study again.
The data confirms, on the one hand, the extraordinary transformation that Spain has experienced, both at the formative and economic level, in the last two decades. 20 years ago one in three young Spaniards of said age strip had left the studies having, at most, the title of Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO). The reduction of abandonment also has the merit of coinciding with a good moment of employment; For a long time, the rate improved in crisis periods and climbed again when the economy was reactivated. “Since 2018 we have reduced the rate in five points and, more importantly, we have given training opportunities to the youth of our country to improve their lives and future,” said the Minister of Education, Pilar Alegría in X.
Abandonment presents great differences by gender; In women it is 10%, while in men it reaches 15.8%. And also for territories: Basque Country and Cantabria have rates of 5% and 5.5% respectively, while Murcia is located at the other end, with 18.2%, and Balearic Islands, 20.1%. Among them are Navarra (9.9%), Asturias and Madrid (10.5%), Castilla y León and Galicia (10.8%), Aragon (11.9%), Valencian Community (12.9%) , Extremadura (13%), Canary Islands (13.1%), Catalonia (13.7%), Castilla-La Mancha (14.6%), Andalusia (15.5%), and La Rioja (17%).
At the same time, the data raises less optimistic issues. Despite its great improvement, Spain is still the second EU country with more abandonment only behind Romania. And it is far not only from members of the union historically more developed, such as Netherlands (6.2%), but of others more similar, such as Portugal (8%). The evolution of the Spanish abandonment rate in recent years shows, in addition, how difficult it is, a point, continuing to reduce it quickly. As educational improvements are made, say, general scope, the percentage of adolescents who continue to abandon without having a degree that allows them to face the world of work with a minimum of guarantees, it is concentrating on profiles on which it results more complex acting to belong, for example, to environments close to social exclusion or present other specific difficulties. “Young people from households with low levels of study virtually quadrup .
The greatest difficulty in reducing abandonment from a certain point is also observed in the evolution of the European Union as a whole. In 2014, Spain had an abandonment rate of 21.9%, and has since reduced it to 40%. In the same period, the EU, which started from a much better situation (11.1%), has reduced by 14.4%(to 9.5%, although the data corresponds to 2023 because the 2024 still It has not been published). The disparity among European countries is, on the other hand, high, the lowest abandonment rate in the EU is given, for example, in Croatia (2%, followed by Ireland, with 4%). While the European economic locomotive, Germany, has a much worse level, of 12.8%, which has increased by 35% between 2014 and 2023.
Miguel Recio, who has been director of the Institute and has held various educational positions, including the person responsible for the Cabinet of Studies of the CC OO Teaching Federation, points out that the fact that the kids continue studying and do not leave Measurement of a series of educational conditions, such as having the ESO title, that there are free FP and Baccalaureate places, or programs for foreign students of late incorporation. “And these factors present in Spain results in clear improvement: less repeaters and more graduates with that, more public places of FP, more support and reinforcement programs for students at disadvantage … which helps to lower this rate and to compensate The 2018-2019 course and 2023-2024 was 52.6% in ESO ”.
Recio refers to the fact that the educational abandonment of almost triplicate foreign kids, with data from 2023, that of the natives “due, to a large extent, to the overlap that is often produced among foreign students and students of socioeconomic and cultural homes disadvantaged, as well as the difficulty derived from the language. Of the 127,813 students who have won in the last five courses (which represents a 6.5%rise), 92,077 (72%) had nationalities other than the Spanish. Recio believes that the success that despite this there is a growing proportion of adolescents and young people who continue studying is related to the policies of the Ministry of Education, largely financed with EU funds, which have increased the number of places FP and have
A more demanding labor market
Together with these educational improvements, among which Ainara Zubillaga also mentions the fact that teachers better manage the diversity of classrooms and educational centers increasingly collectively address the challenge of their students at risk of school failure, The Director of Education of the Cotec Foundation considers the productive change experienced by Spain in the last 20 years. “The reality of the labor market that led in 2004 to such high rates of early educational abandonment, such as the real estate bubble, is no longer. Now we have a labor market that, having many defects, is much more knowledge -oriented, has a high component of digitalization, and raises a greater formative demand. This is no longer so simple to: ‘I abandon the educational system and find something to work on. “
Spain, Zubillaga continues, is transforming its traditional formative structure in the form of a sand watch – with a significant percentage of population with higher education and another equally prominent people without hardly study – thanks to the development of the middle part, which is linked to The professional qualification. “I think that the diversification offered by professional training, from the basic” thought so that the kids who go wrong to end the ESA – to the average and superior formative cycles, is one of the keys that are changing the stage. “
