Early school leaving in the EU, Italia is one percentage point below the European average. Spain and Germany among the worst

That Italia's results in the 'fight' against early school leaving were good had already been established in April, when ISTAT released the figure of 8.2% for our country. A sudden result (in 2020 it was over 14%) and above all more than in line with European targets (less than 9% by 2030).

Now, with the publication of EU data by Eurostat, that 8.2% acquires even more value. Because it is almost one percentage point below the European average and still far below other large countries such as Germany and Spain.

Let us go in order and start with the Italian numbers. We went from 14.2% in 2020 to 8.2% in 2025, with constant growth year by year (in 2022 we stopped at 11.5%). A trend that made it possible to hit both the Pnrr target (10.2%) and the European objective of Agenda 2030.

At the top of the negative ranking is Romania, standing at 15.5%. It is followed by Germany at 13.1% and Spain at 12.8%. Berlin is also among the countries that have worsened the most over the past decade: among the seven countries where the rate increased from 2015 to 2025, Germany scores +3.0 pp, preceded only by Cyprus (+4.6 pp) and followed by Austria (+2.7 pp).

Seventeen Member States have already reached the EU target. The lowest values are in Croatia (2.1%), Greece (3.0%) and Ireland (3.6%). Among the large countries, Portugal and Spain recorded the largest reductions compared to 2015, -7.4 and -7.2 percentage points respectively, although Spain still starts from a level too high to celebrate.