The rate of school dropout in the Canary Islands stood at 15.1% of students in 2023, above the national average, established at 13.6% of people aged 18 to 24 without having completed the second stage of Secondary Education: Intermediate Vocational Training, Basic or Baccalaureate.
This is the seventh worst figure among autonomous communities and cities, far from the Foral Community of Navarra (6.3%), the Basque Country (6.4%), Cantabria (7.4%), Galicia (8.8%) or La Rioja (9.4%), all of them below the average of the European Union (9.6%).
Ceuta, the Balearic Islands and Murcia obtain the worst data, well above the national and European average, according to data released this Monday by the Ministry of Education.
Nationally, the dropout rate decreased in 2023 by three tenths, and compared to a decade ago, this percentage has fallen by ten points, from 23.6% in 2013 to the current 13.6%.
The distance with the EU average has also been reduced: from 11.8 points ten years ago to four points in 2023.
The gender gap remains in favor of women
In 2023, the difference between the figure for men (15.8%) and that for women (11.3%) is still very large, 4.5 points, although it has decreased from the 7.4 points difference in 2013.
However, considering the proportions between both sexes, the percentage of dropout among men exceeds that of women by 39.7% in 2023, and in 2013 it did so by 37.3%.
The Ministry also points to the different behavior that this indicator has had in 2023 for men, having decreased 0.7 points, and for women, it remains stable, (+0.1 points), after the increase of the previous year by 1.5 points.
On the other hand, the level of education of the young population, taking as a reference the indicator of the percentage of the population aged 20-24 who have reached at least the second stage of Secondary Education, in 2023 stands at 79.1%, 15.3 points above 2013 (63.8%), and exceeding that of the previous year by 0.4 points (78.7% in 2022).
Participation of the adult population in training
The indicator of participation of the adult population in training, considered as the percentage of the population aged 25-64 who have followed some training in the last four weeks, presents "a significant growth" in 2023, reaching 15.9%, 0.6 points more than in 2022.
In comparison with the European average of 2022 (11.9%), the latest available data, it would be a much higher percentage.