The rate of early school dropout in the Canary Islands has rebounded from 13.1% the previous year to 14.4% in the last year, almost two points above the national average (12.6%.
In Spain as a whole, the early school dropout rate has fallen below the 13% barrier in recent months, after four years of stagnation at this figure, and according to data from the Active Population Survey (EPA) it stood at 12.6% in June.
The analysis carried out by the Funcas Studies service, which EFE has had access to, indicates that in the last two quarters of 2024 and the first two quarters of 2025 the school dropout rate, which is the percentage of people aged 18 to 24 who have not completed upper secondary education and have not continued their education, has fallen by four tenths.
The territorial differences are very significant, since in 2025 the gap ranges between the 20.6% early dropout rate in the Murcia Region and the 3.8% recorded in the Basque Country.
Cantabria (6.1%), Madrid (9.3%) or Navarra (9.6%) also register low rates, compared to figures of 18.8% in the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla.
However, there are communities that have made efforts to reduce these rates, such as Andalusia, which has gone from 16.9% in 2023 to 15.5% in 2024 and 14.8% in 2025.
Castilla y León has also improved its school dropout rate, reaching 9.7% this year, while the Valencian Community has reduced it from 15% in 2023 to 13.8% in 2025.
The evolution of this figure had stagnated in the last four years, since in 2021 a rate of 13.3% was recorded, in 2022 it rose to 13.9%, in 2023 it fell again to 13.7% and in 2024 it fell to 13%.
"In any case, the decrease does not prevent Spain from still being far from the European target of 9% set for 2030", Ismael Sanz, director of the Education area of Funcas, tells EFE, who recalls that "we are the second country with the highest dropout rate in the EU, only better than Romania (16.8%), and we are far from the European average, currently 9.3%".
Funcas recalls in its report that early school dropout is closely linked to the educational level of families, since young people whose mothers only have primary education are 14 times more likely to drop out than those with mothers with higher education.
The European Commission has warned that after the pandemic, rates of prolonged absenteeism (more than three consecutive months without attending) increased especially in the EU among disadvantaged students and affects the worst results in the labor market that these people will have, with lower incomes and more unemployment.
To curb this early dropout, the Funcas expert reiterates the need to combine the reduction of ratios in classrooms and personalized tutoring with incentives for experienced teachers in vulnerable centers.
Also, the flexibilization of vocational training and an educational orientation adapted to the labor market or reinforcement programs are measures that would support this decrease.