According to the information from the EU’s official statistics office Spain had the worst rate of dropouts, at 21.9 percent, followed by Malta, Romania, Portugal in fourth and Italy completing the top five.
However, on the flip side of the coin, Portugal also showed the greatest reduction in the number of school abandoners in comparison to figures from 2006, having improved from 38.5 percent that year, to 17.4 percent last year, a decrease of almost half.
The national objective is for Portugal’s school abandonment rate to sit at a maximum of 10 percent, which is closer to the EU average.
At the opposite end of the scale, with the fewest students quitting education early on, are Croatia, with a rate of 2.7 percent, Slovenia (4.4 percent), Poland (5.4 percent), the Czech Republic (5.5 percent), and Lithuania (5.9 percent).
Last year the EU average was 11.1 percent, which is also down from the 15.3 percent of 2006.
Generally-speaking, boys drop out of school more frequently than girls, with the only exception to the general rule across the EU being in Bulgaria, where 0.1 percent more girls abandoned school than boys.
Fifteen EU Member States have already achieved national objectives set for 2020, these being the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Austria, Slovenia and Sweden.
Another objective defined in the EU’s strategy to boost employment and growth in Europe by 2020, is to increase the number of graduates.
Last year, the share of 30-34 year olds with a higher education degree was of 31.1 percent, compared to the 12.9 percent registered in 2002 and 30 percent in 2013.
The EU current benchmark is set at 37.9 percent, compared to 23.6 percent in 2002, and 37.1 percent in 2013.
Portugal’s 2020 goal is to have 40 percent of its young adults within the aforementioned age bracket be in possession of a degree.
In Lithuania, last year, more than half of its population (53.3 percent) aged 30 to 34 had a degree, as did 52.7 percent of young adults in Luxemburg, 52.5 percent in Cyprus, and 52.2 percent in Ireland.
At the bottom end of that table are Italy, Romania, Malta, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
Twelve Member States have already achieved their 2020 objectives with regard to graduates, these being Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungry, Holland, Austria, Slovenia, Finland and Sweden.