The rate of early leavers from education and training in Portugal increased last year to 8%, breaking the gradual downward trend that had been registered since 2017, according to information provided by the National Statistics Institute (INE).
After six consecutive years of a drop in the number of pupils leaving school early, INE now reveals that this trend was broken last year.
In 2023, there was an increase of 1.5 percentage points in the dropout rate in Portugal, from 6.5 to 8%.
Only students from the Azores islands continued the downward trend in the dropout rate, from 26.1% in 2022 to 21.7% last year.
As for the figures for mainland Portugal, there has been an increase, but the rates are much lower: 5.9% in 2022 and 7.6% last year.
In 2016, 14% of Portuguese young people dropped out of school, and since then it has been falling: In 2020 it reached 8.9%, below the target set for that year and, for the first time, below the European average.
The European Union has set a target for 2030 of an early school leaving rate below 9%.
The school dropout rate allows us to identify the percentage of young people who have not completed secondary education and are not in any form of education and training.
