(12 November 2015) – The Education and Training Monitor 2015 shows progress in education attainment across Europe but reveals investment is needed to make education more inclusive and boost social mobility.
The 2015 edition of the EU’s Education and Training Monitor shows more Member States have now reached their goals in increasing the number of students completing higher levels of education and minimising those leaving education early.
Evidence gathered for the Monitor shows that 15-year olds with low socio-economic status are five times more likely not to achieve basic skills like literacy and numeracy than their peers from better-off backgrounds. It also highlights the fact that foreign-born students are twice as likely to leave school early as native-born students.
This situation is set against continuous spending cuts in educational budgets, which have fallen by 3.2% across Europe since 2010. The study concludes that a new boost in investment for education is needed to build more inclusive educational systems in Europe and avoid rising ‘educational poverty’, which remains a root cause of unemployment and social exclusion.