Page 27 - Guiding-at-risk-youth-through-learning-to-work-Lessons-from-across-Europe

Guiding at-risk youth through learning to work
Lessons from across Europe

3. Background

Both the personal and social costs of early school leaving have increased in the
last few decades. It is now widely recognised that business and society benefit
when young people are able to leave school with the qualifications they need to
succeed in the world of work (CBI, 2008).
As a result, school completion is viewed as a major policy objective in
Europe. There is considerable European and national emphasis on increasing
school completion rates and achieving ever higher levels of education and
training, with the target of achieving universal completion for upper secondary
education. The rationale is clear. Europe’s economic future does not just depend
on ensuring there are enough highly qualified graduates: to secure long-term
prosperity, all school leavers, not just high achievers, must be well equipped for
success in life and work.
The European Union has introduced a range of measures geared towards
supporting young people to complete upper secondary education. These
measures are linked to the Lisbon Agenda, which identified the European Union’s
intention to make the EU the most competitive economy in the world by 2010.
The Education and training 2010 work programme developed as part of the
Lisbon Strategy introduced a series of five benchmarks, including one for
reducing the EU early school leaving average to 10 % by 2010. The follow-up to
the 2010 work programme, the Strategic framework for European cooperation in
education and training, adopted by the European Council in May 2009, states
that the proportion of early leavers from education and training should be less
than 10 % by 2020.
This section of the report outlines the context for the study by:
(a) discussing the definition of early school leaving and the variations in national
and international definitions;
(b) assessing the scale and scope of the problem of early school leaving in
Europe, and summarising the consequences of early departures from the
education and training system;
(c) illustrating the increasingly complex transition for young people from
education to work;
(d) examining the role of guidance in the transition.

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