The 2024 Education and Training Monitor outlines challenges for the EEA by 2030, including basic skills, access to adult learning, student mobility.
How close is the EU to completing the European Education Area (EEA)? The recent publication of the annual Education and Training Monitor reveals the varied progress by Member States (MS) towards achieving EU-level targets in education and training set for 2030 by drawing on a range of different surveys. After previously focusing on changes in the teaching profession (see SwissCore article), this year’s edition puts a spotlight on learning for sustainability, defined by the European Commission (EC) as “the holistic and interdisciplinary learning experiences that enable learners to embody sustainability values, vision, and mindset”, thereby echoing the EC’s ambition for a holistic green transition.
The EU seems to be well on its way to progressing on a number of quantitative targets: Firstly, most children from 3 years of age participate in early childhood education and care (ECEC) (93.1% compared to the 2030 target of 96%). Moreover, drop-out rates from the school sector have been reduced to 9.5% (2030 goal: 9%), marking substantial progress in more than half of all MS. Considering that early school leaving seems to be related to unemployment (as is the case for 53.7% of early school leavers surveyed) the exchange of best practices among MS to prevent and intervene in drop-outs is considered crucial to encourage more students to complete their education. Progress has further been achieved in the vocational education and training (VET) sector, where 64.5% of learners reported having participated in work-based learning as part of their curriculum, therefore already surpassing the 2030 target of 60%. Recent VET graduates with access to work-based learning schemes also reported higher employment rates than their peers who only have school-based VET learning experiences (13.5 percentage points difference), although this achievement is dependent on the field of study. Lastly, the report claims that 43.1% of young people aged 25 to 34 years attain tertiary education, indicating that the goal of 45% by 2030 is well within reach. This is despite variations across MS, rural and urban areas, and gender of learners.
It should be noted that regardless of the good progress reflected by these indicators, some of the reported data has weaknesses due to incompleteness or challenges of collecting representative data. For instance, the lower levels of early drop-outs generally disregard the fact that many students never enrolled in upper secondary education at all. Furthermore, throughout all indicators, systematic disadvantages of vulnerable groups are observed: Socio-economic status, often measured by parental educational attainment, seems to limit learner’s access to all levels of education. This finding points towards the importance of tailoring measures to the most vulnerable societal groups in order to break intergenerational patterns. Similarly, coming from a migrant status or having a disability seems to encourage both early school leaving and accessing different levels of education, including ECEC. Specifically, the report remarks that while many countries make ECEC compulsory, participation is not always free, therefore leading to indirect discrimination.
The 2024 Monitor also reveals areas where the EEA is still far from reaching its targets for the next five years. Notably, it is reported that underachievement in basic skills is on the rise among EU students. While the 2030 target foresees less than 15% of underachievement in basic skills, low performance has reached a record high in maths (29.5%), reading (26.2%), and science (24.2%). Systematic disparities are growing, as vulnerable learners are now claimed to be at a more than six-times bigger risk for underachievement than their peers. Furthermore, the EU is currently not projected to reach its mobility target of making at least 30% of tertiary education students mobile by 2030; only 11% of learners are currently integrating mobility into their higher education journey. Mobility among EU MS is further highly imbalanced, with some countries clearly being net-senders (Croatia, Slovakia, Greece) and others net-receivers (Denmark, Netherlands, Malta) of exchange students. Finally, considering adult learning, only 47% of adults aged between 25 and 64 years surveyed indicated having participated in learning in the past year. Current progress is therefore considered too slow for the 2030 target of over 60% to be met. The situation seems to be most dire for those adults in need of up- and reskilling, such as in sectors most likely to be transformed in the coming years.
Regarding learning for sustainability, a key focus area of the current edition, the data indicates that foundational knowledge about sustainability varies largely between MS and according to socio-economic background of learners and students. Although students widely seem to agree on the value and importance of acting sustainably (83.6%), far fewer are actively changing their lifestyles to reflect these beliefs (29.8%). The build-up of sustainability competencies is generally supported by all MS and across all educational levels and sectors, including through novel teaching formats, teacher training and education, and curricula changes, although variations exist between geographical regions.
Across the board, the 2024 Monitor shows how some national education and training systems seem to be performing better than others: Estonia, Ireland, and Northern MS, such as Denmark and Finland, continue to reach or exceed the targets set out for the EEA by 2030. At the same time, newer MS such as Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovakia are highlighted as geographical areas where more reforms will be necessary before the EEA goals can be reached. In Switzerland, which is not represented in the Education and Training Monitor, basic skills are also on the decline (see OECD PISA 2022 results), however, the number of adults participating in training annually is closer to the EU target of 60%. This indicates that Switzerland shares some challenges but also opportunities for best-practice exchange with EU MS seeking to make the EEA 2030 vision a reality.