This is the Government's new plan to bring back those who drop out of school

BarcelonaThe percentage of students who drop out of school early in Catalonia is four points higher than the European average. These are students who have not completed compulsory secondary education (ESO) or, especially, who after completing it do not continue with any type of post-compulsory education such as upper secondary education (Bachillerato) or vocational training (FP). The proportion of Catalan students who leave school prematurely is 13.7%, while the European average is 9.3%. Although since 2017 Catalonia has reduced the dropout rate by more than three pointsThe rate remains far from the 9% target set by Europe. The Catalan government presented its new Action Plan against Early School Leaving this Friday at an event in Vilafranca del Penedès. Neither President Salvador Illa nor the Minister of Education, Esther Niubó, attended, but the new Secretary for Educational Improvement, Ignasi Giménez, was present. The strategy that the government intends to implement over the coming years has ten key areas, including a project to "reconnect" with students who have already left school, more flexible educational pathways, a focus on newly enrolled students, and a series of actions to create a network among various administrations for monitoring purposes.

Reconnect

One of the flagship measures of the strategy presented by the Catalan Government is the Reconnect-ES project, which involves a team of 52 social educators contacting young people who have dropped out of school to try to reintegrate them into the education system. The initiative was launched at the start of this academic year and has contacted almost 9,000 students who had stopped studying after completing compulsory secondary education (ESO) last year. Of the total number of former students contacted, some 1,300 (15%) returned to the classroom. Of these, most enrolled in a vocational training program (FP), and 8% returned to their studies by completing upper secondary education (Bachillerato). The government also wants to "adjust" the curriculum to the needs of students by creating more flexible learning pathways that, for example, facilitate the transition to vocational training. Currently, a process is underway to regulate the "diversification" applied to the 3rd and 4th year ESO (Compulsory Secondary Education) curricula, aiming to better align them with students' desired fields of study after graduation.

School absenteeism

One of the indicators that raises the alarm about the risk of dropping out of school is absenteeism. In this regard, one of the plan's objectives is to update the system for recording assessment indicators to obtain data related to this phenomenon. However, for the moment, the initial steps have only involved creating absenteeism committees in the different regions. Another pending challenge is ensuring that the various administrations—schools, municipalities, regional services, and departments—keep track of students at risk of dropping out. Therefore, the plan aims to develop a joint action plan, establish committees to monitor the situation of students in all municipalities, and create local plans to prevent dropping out. The plan presented this Friday also proposes a review of the pact against school segregation to take into account residential segregation and to make the procedures for requesting financial aid more flexible.