European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network Database, ELGPN Database

Early school-leaver

Early school-leavers are individuals below the statutory school-leaving age who have withdrawn from or left an education or training programme without completing it.

In an EU context this term has a specific technical meaning. The early school-leaving rate is defined by the proportion of the population aged 18-24 with only lower secondary education or less and no longer in education or training. Early school-leavers are therefore those who have only achieved pre-primary, primary, lower secondary or a short upper secondary education of less than 2 years (ISCED 0, 1, 2 or 3c short), and include those who have only a pre-vocational or vocational education which did not lead to an upper secondary certification.
Early school-leaver needs to be distinguished from drop-out which is a more general term.

EU Council Recommendation on Early School Leaving (2011). Official Journal of the European Union. Available from Internet: http://ec.europa.eu/education/school-education/doc/earlyrec_en.pdf

 

http://ec.europa.eu/education/school-education/doc/earlyrec_en.pdf