The European Union has moved closer to achieving its 2030 education target, with the proportion of young people leaving education and training early falling to 9.1% in 2025.

The latest figures show a steady decline in early school leaving over the past decade, down from 11.0% in 2015. The result leaves the EU just 0.1 percentage points away from its goal of reducing the share of early leavers among 18- to 24-year-olds to below 9.0% by the end of the decade.

While young men remain more likely than young women to leave education and training prematurely, both groups have recorded significant improvements. The rate among men fell from 12.5% in 2015 to 10.6% in 2025, while the share among women declined from 9.4% to 7.5% over the same period.

Progress has been widespread across the bloc. Compared with 2015, 19 EU member states reported lower rates of early school leaving in 2025. Malta recorded the largest improvement, cutting its rate by 7.7 percentage points. Portugal and Spain followed closely, with reductions of 7.4 and 7.2 percentage points respectively.

However, not all countries moved in the same direction. Seven member states reported higher rates than a decade ago. Cyprus saw the sharpest increase, rising by 4.6 percentage points, followed by Germany (+3.0 points) and Austria (+2.7 points).

Seventeen EU countries have already met or surpassed the Union's 2030 benchmark. The lowest rates of early school leaving were recorded in Croatia (2.1%), Greece (3.0%), and Ireland (3.6%).

At the other end of the scale, Romania reported the highest share of early leavers in 2025 at 15.5%, followed by Germany (13.1%) and Spain (12.8%).

The latest data suggest the EU is on track to meet its education target, although significant disparities between member states remain. Photo by Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer), Wikimedia commons.