From school drop-out to a rewarding job: vocational education counts

Being a teenager is not always easy, and for many reasons one might decide to stop going to school. In countries surrounding the EU patterns can be identified, and despite national differences, one thing is sure: vocational education is proven to mitigate the risk of early leaving – an analysis of the European Training Foundation says.

Spotlight on EU neighbouring countries

North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey and Tunisia are countries surrounding the European Union with substantial differences in their education systems, but all are responding to the challenge of students leaving school – although with significant dissimilarities. The European Training Foundation, the EU agency supporting countries neighbouring the EU to reform education and labour market systems, has recently explored drop-out patterns in the countries to provide policy makers with evidence in support of immediate policy response.

The shorter the studies, the higher the drop-out

Let’s start by focusing on vocational education: it might look counter-intuitive, but recent evidence shows that students are more likely to abandon studies when these are shorter. Indeed, for 3-years vocational programs there is one drop-out every four students in North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, whereas only some 15% of students abandon studies before completion, in 4-years long programs. This is not the case for Turkey, where only 4-years vocational programs exist, and drop-out rate is about 30%.

Boys, more likely to leaving school  than girls

Irrespective of the duration of studies, data highlight significant gender patterns, with young men being more likely to drop than women. For instance, in Montenegro one third of young men dropped from 3-years vocational education programs, and one fourth in Serbia and North Macedonia, whereas drop-out rate is lower for young women: only some 10% in Montenegro and Serbia. Similar gender patterns occur for 4-years vocational education programs, with young men being leaving earlier more often than women. This is also valid  for Turkey, but not for Tunisia, where drop-out rate for women reaches 75% for some programs (Certificat d'Aptitude Professionnelle-CAP).

The role of context in leaving school

The reasons behind drop-out may vary a lot – from an individual’s story, to family reasons, to the community environment and the school context – but one thing is true: data show patterns at a national level, hence the need to provide country-specific responses.

Expanding the focus from vocational education to all education paths, Tunisia is suffering from a very high drop-out rate: one every two students leave school before the completion of studies, and this trend is even worse for women – where only 25% complete the studies. In the country, there’s no difference between vocational education and other education paths. This trends improves in Turkey, where two every three students complete school, and Montenegro, with 95% of students completing education.

Reacting to drop out

School dropout in the education system requires strategic action by all those involved in it: politicians, decision makers, parents, teachers and students. In reacting to the problem, data can help in finding solutions.

Although the relationship is not always a straightforward one, vocational education is proven to be a mitigating factor of the risk of early leaving. In Montenegro, Serbia and North Macedonia less than 10% of 18-24-year-olds dropped out of school in 2017. All countries have in common a very high proportion (up to 75%) of upper secondary students enrolled in vocational programmes.

So one thing is key: keeping young people in education while upskilling them through vocational qualifications is a proven successful policy option, in these countries at least. And when assessing the efficiency of a country’s education system, looking at the the drop-out rate is crucial. Subsequently, more efforts should be made towards better measuring and address in the policy actions.

Background: How to measure drop-out

Drop-out is typically difficult to measure and could be due to many factors. The European Training Foundation has analysed the issue by using national data collection (2018) and by measuring the incidence of drop-out is by using the completion rates. The completion rate describes the percentage of students who graduate from a programme a given number of years after they entered (i.e. theoretical duration) as a share of those who entered. Drop-out can be therefore estimated as the share of those failing to complete a programme.