Factors Influencing Early Drop-Out of School and Education. Prevention Strategies

In 2007, 31% of Spanish youth aged 18 and 24 had not completed upper secondary education, a percentage which is fifteen points higher than the EU-27 average. This article aims to examine the ability of certain contextual factors to explain the levels of school dropout, assessing at the same time the margin for intervention which educational policies still have to tackle this problem. Using simple regression analysis, we investigate the existing relation between a number of contextual indicators and two measures of school dropout (early school dropout, and level of non-participation of youth aged 18 in education) in 30 European countries. In this way we take into consideration socioeconomic, labour and educational factors, as well as variables of public expenditure on education and configuration of the school system. Using multivariate analysis, we assess the net effect on the levels of non-participation of youth aged 18 in education of those more relevant factors in absence of statistical control. The results point to three possible focuses of attention: low-skilled occupation, the structure of public investment in education, and the configuration of the school network. In terms of educational policy implications, although it seems that an increase in educational investment does not contribute per se to reducing the levels of non-participation in education of youth, it appears that certain strategies of financial aid to students can have positive impacts on reducing such levels. Likewise, results suggest that vocational education can favour the school continuity beyond compulsory education of a significant group of students who would show a tendency to drop out within school regimes with a highly academic school offer. Adapted from the source document.