Education and Training Monitor 2018 – on track on most EU targets

The 2018 edition of the Education and Training Monitor was launched on 16 October in Brussels, by Commissioner Tibor Navracsics. The publication monitors progress on the six ET 2020 headline targets in the 28 EU member states and is compiled using data from Eurostat, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and analyses done within the Eurydice network.

The 2018 edition refers to data for 2017 and shows progress along the six axes for the EU as a whole, as well as the 3 best performer countries and countries with the biggest progress in the period 2014 – 2017, as follows:

In addition to the six targets, the report also shows progress towards the 20% by 2020 outward mobility benchmark, adopted by the EU and the EHEA countries. While clearly outlining remaining challenges and limitations of data collection, which likely make the available figures an undercount, the report estimates that in 2016, about 10.7% higher education graduates from one of the EU member states were mobile, of these 3.1% being degree mobile and 7.6% being credit mobile.

As expected, considerable differences exist at the level of individual EU member states, both for outgoing degree and credit mobility. Here are some of the key estimative figures:

The only two EU member states that seem to have surpassed the target are Luxembourg (84.4% outward mobile graduates) – a country that even before the target-setting moment surpassed the benchmark, due to very specific circumstances – and the Netherlands (23.2% mobile graduates).
Closest to reaching the target seem to be Finland, Germany, France, Cyprus and Lithuania, all with outgoing mobility levels above between 15.6% and 19.5%.
In countries with both data sets available, credit mobility seems to play a bigger role (percentage-wise) than degree mobility in, for example, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark and the UK, whereas the opposite is true for countries like Slovakia or Cyprus.
On average for 24 of the 28 EU member states, 49.4% of all outgoing credit mobility is taking place in the framework of EU programmes.

The report also gives an account of incoming degree mobile graduates, with the EU28 average at 8.6% in 2016. Of these, about 30.6% come from other EU member states.

Last but not least, the publication includes a chapter on citizenship education and civic competences and one on investing in education and training.

The main volume is accompanied by a second one, with country analyses.