Lifelong Learning Project - School Inclusion - Preventing Early School Leaving

An Ineffective but socially appropriate education system?

Joan Estruch

84 CUADERNOS DE PEDAGOGÍA. Nº369

JUNIO 2007

Magazine

Spanish

Statistics show that early drop out of school is growing significantly, the number of graduates from High School is diminishing and 30% of student don’t complete compulsory education. Nevertheless, this does not seem to matter in an economy with high growth rates, more focused on speculative and fast enrichment than knowledge.

The article underline how the current Spanish labor market offers more employment opportunities to young people with low educational qualifications (tourism and construction) compare to those with higher education. On the other side, in the other European countries young people with high level of education usually have more opportunity to find more qualified jobs. This could be one of the reason Spanish young people don’t feel motivated in completing their studies. Moreover there are other week points of the economical Spanish model (low productivity, low high technology development and high debt).
Finally, the solution could be taking into account positive educational systems such as those currently present in Finland and South Chorea which are very different but they both consider the match between educational and social values.

Alessia Pinna

Florida

International Relations Department