El fracaso escolar en España y sus regiones: Disparidades territoriales/School failure in Spain and its regions: Territorial disparities and proposals for improvement

• Published in: Revista de estudios regionales (Málaga (Spain)) 2016-09 (107), p.121
• Main Authors: Martínez, María López, Reverte, Ginés Marco, Manzano, Ma Mercedes Palacios
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Subjects: Educational attainment; Failure; School dropouts; Studies
• ISSN: 0213-7585

This essay describes and analyzes one of the main problems that exist in Spain nowadays, the problem of early school leaving. The human capital endowment is seen as a key to promote growth and competitiveness of a country. Although Spain has made significant progress in the educational level of its population in the last fifty years, even today remain two major problems: a high deficit of training in the international context and large educational disparities between regions. Territorial differences are linked, among other factors, to the gradual decentralization of the education system in our country in recent decades. The Spanish educational neglect is a structural problem that can hinder both accesses to the labor market of young people as their own job stability, with the risk of economic and social exclusion. This scenario makes the acquisition of compulsory education levels is a necessary but not sufficient condition, as required also continue post-compulsory education for better opportunities. In addition, the education system must not only transmit knowledge, but also other skills that foster innovation and creativity, preparing students for a complex and changing future. Among the indicators related to school failure, we will focus on early school leaving, which is measured by the percentage of people aged 18 to 24 who are outside the education system or have not completed compulsory education. It is considered that this indicator is best to carry out international comparisons because of its homogeneity. Making a comparison between the countries of the European Union-28, it draws attention to the position of Spain, which has the highest rate of early school leavers despite having an intermediate level of income. The persistence of this educational problem in Spain, which has maintained dropout rates at very high levels, around 30% for 10 years, is related to the economic and employment situation experienced by the country during the last economic boom phase (1995-2007). In that period, Spain had significant growth mainly driven by the construction sector and especially among the male group. At that stage, many students left school without completing compulsory education, to work in real estate. In addition to the impact of the construction sector, frequent changes in education laws, especially the change introduced by the LOGSE, which raised the number of years of compulsory education and established a more rigid curriculum. Although the dropout r