Romania has highest percentage of youth who don’t go to college, says Eurostat

Over 15% of Romanians between 18 and 24 had quit school after completing at most a lower secondary education, in 2021, compared to the EU average of 9.7%.

Early leavers from education and training in Romania topped European chartsaccording to Eurostat, the statistics office of the European Union. Romania was followed by Spain and Italy, each with roughly 13%, then Bulgaria, Hungary, and Germany with around 12%.

At the other end of the ranking, only around 3% of 18 to 24-year-olds in Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, and Ireland chose to abandon their education after graduating from the lower secondary school.

Roughly 11% of men in the EU between 18 and 24 were early leavers. Among women of the same group, 8% chose not to go to college.

The EU’s average early leavers percentagedropped from 13% in 2011 to around one in ten last year. In that period, Portugal went from 28% to 5%. Romania showed mixed progress, going from 17% in 2013 to 19% in 2015, then experiencing a continuous, albeit slow, decrease to the latest figure, 15%.

The Eurostat data shows a huge gap between the young Romanians in rural areas, almost a quarter of whom are early school leavers, and those living in large cities, where the share drops to under 5%.

By 2030, the European Union aims to lower the average percentage of early leavers to 9%. Sixteen countries have already reached that goal.

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