CYPRUS: Higher education level on the rise, drop in early school leavers

Cyprus ranks second among EU member states, behind Lithuania, with just over half its 30-to-34 age group having attained university education, and far exceeding the ‘Europe 2020’strategy target of 40%.

 
In Cyprus, 54.6% of this age group had university education, according to the Eurostat survey for 2015, with Lithuania in the lead with 57.6% and followed by Ireland and Luxembourg (52.3%) and Sweden (50.2%).
At the bottom of the table were Italy (25.3%), Romania (25.6%), Malta (27.8%) and Slovakia (28.4%).
The EU average has risen from 23.6% in 2002 when the annual survey started, to 38.7% in 2015. This was more evident among women (from 24.5% in 2002 to 43.4% in 2015) than for men (from 22.6% to 34.0%).
Cyprus also had shared the third best ranking, with Poland, of ‘early school leavers’ from among the 18-24 age group. Their rate was 5.3%, behind Croatia (2.8%) and Slovenia (5.0%), while the highest rates were recorded in Spain (20.0%), Malta (19.8%) and Romania (19.1%).
The average of early leavers in the EU has dropped from 17.0% in 2002 to 11.0% in 2015. Young women (9.5% in 2015) are less affected than young men (12.4%). The Europe 2020 target aims to reduce the rates of early school leavers in the EU to below 10% by 2020.