Key data on education in Europe 2012. Eurydice, European Commission, Brussels, 2012. ISBN: 978-92-9201-242-7. Pages: 212.

The Key data on education in Europe report is published biannually by the Eurydice network. Released jointly with Eurostat, the 2012 iteration of the report provides a set of standardised and comparable quantitative and qualitative indicators on the organisation and functioning of European education systems. Structurally and in terms of the indicators examined, this eighth edition of the report is in line with the European Strategic Framework for Education and Training (‘ET 2020’) and EU’s strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth (‘EU 2020’), given that it helps to monitor the related implementation progress. Specifically, this publication examines the areas of particular importance for European cooperation, such as participation in compulsory education, tertiary education attainment and transition to the labour market, investment in education and quality assurance. The report also explores how countries respond to common challenges in education. With regard to higher education, the following trends are specifically highlighted in the text: 

• education structures and organisation: the tertiary education population on average increased by 22% in the period 2000-2009; 
• autonomy: the level of institutional autonomy in higher education, particularly with regard to the management of academic staff, has been increased; 
• funding: more countries have introduced different kinds of fees for tertiary education students, coupled with targeted financial support (student grants and loans at tertiary level now account for more than 16.7% of public expenditure on education in the EU); and 
• employment opportunities: despite an increase in the number of tertiary graduates, a growing proportion appears to be overqualified for the type of employment they find; there are persistent imbalances in student participation in various academic disciplines; women remain, on average, more likely to be unemployed than men, etc.

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