Measures to tackle early school leaving

MADRID
MEASURES being introduced to tackle the high rate of early school leaving in the Balearics should start to take effect before the end of the year.
The Secretary General of the Ministry for Education, Alejandro Tiana, said that the measures will be cofinanced by central Government and the autonomous community and implemented this year Tiana said that the principal cause of early school leaving in the Balearics was the easy availability of low-paid work.

Analysing the problem, the Government and the Balearic authority had come up with a package that would be more attractive to the student than leaving school, he added.

These include improving grants and establishing a series of salary-grants, oriented towards those student who need an income, alongside more specific measures for groups or areas that need more specific help.

The Balearics leads the list of regions, ahead of Catalonia, Ceuta and Melilla for students leaving the education system early.
About 33.9 percent of women and 45 percent of men between the ages of 18 and 24 have only completed compulsory second-level education, leaving school before the final two-year Bachillerato.