Malta has the highest proportion of early leavers from education and training according to the Eurostat Yearbook 2012, published today.

The yearbook “A gateway to European statistics” defines early school leavers as people aged 18 to 24 who have completed at most lower secondary education and who have not received any education or training in the last four weeks.

The Europe 2020 strategy and the strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training³ have set a target of 10 per centor 2020 for this indicator.

In 2010, the percentage was 14 per cent on average in the EU27, and varied among members, from 5 per cent in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Poland to 37 per cent in Malta, 29 per cent in Portugal and 28 per cent in Spain.

In the EU27, the proportion was 12 per cent for women and 16 per cent for men, with higher shares for men in all states, except Bulgaria and Slovakia.

Data on educational attainment show that 79 per cent of those aged 20 to 24 in the EU27 had completed at least upper secondary education in 2010.

The percentages varied among member states from 53 per cent in Malta, 59 per cent in Portugal, 61 per cent in Spain and 68 per cent in Denmark to 93 per cent in Slovakia, 92 per cent in the Czech Republic and 91 per cent in Poland.

On average in the EU27, 82 per cent of women and 76 per cent of men had completed at least upper secondary education in 2010. The percentage for women was higher than for men in all member states except Bulgaria and Slovakia.

The age of students in tertiary education depends on many factors: whether they postpone starting tertiary education either by choice or obligation, the length of the courses studied and the extent to which mature students return to education later in life.

The median age in tertiary education was 22.1 in the EU27 in 2009, with the highest median ages observed in Sweden (25.3), Denmark (25.2), Finland (24.5) and Austria (23.8), and the lowest in Ireland (20.2), France (20.5), Belgium and Malta (both 20.7).