28 April RESET (Regional European Skills, Education and Training) network hosted an event to address the regional response to Early School Leaving (ESL0 in Scotland House Brussels.

Early School Leaving (ESL) is a failure to complete upper secondary school or compulsory schooling, or the failure to gain qualifications at the point of leaving school. ESL rates are defined by the proportion of the population aged 18-24 with only lower secondary education and that are no longer in education or training.

With an EU-wide average of 15% for early school leavers (this rate masks varying differences among Member States), is arguably Europe's number one problem when it comes to addressing the need to upskill the European workforce.

Consequently, Europe 2020 takes the reducation of ESL to below 10% over the coming decade as a headline target. The main causes for ESL, differ from region to region but do respond to certain patterns, as research has shown that early school leavers predominatly come from poor, socially disadvataged backgrounds, minorities (migrant) or belong to at risk groups. More monitoring and better compartive studies are needed including support for exchanges and peer-learning, but also targeted use of EU funding, to effectively tackle this major societal challenge.

The European Commission are proposing to scale up efforts along three strands:

• prevention
• intervention
• compensation (second chance education)

At this event we were not only eager to learn more about the solutions the EU proposes to tackle this headline target in the years running up to 2020, but we will present you with our own challenges faced as regions as well as showing you some of the most successful regional practices available, including teaching of languages to migrants. The session and subsequent discussions should contribute to what is already a heated debate on Early School Leaving.

Please download the summary report of the event and presentations:

Learning Teaching Scotland, Norman Emerson

The OECD View on Early School Leaving, Bernard Hugonnier - Deputy Director for Education

Transfercoach ROC West Brabant, Joan van den Heijkant

Presentation by Suzanne Conze DG Education and Culture, European Commission

The Education Centre, West-Brabant - Herman Pranger

Please find attached the notes taken at the meeting. 

We would like to thank everyone who attended this meeting and their valuable input to the sessions.

more information & attendee list