The percentage of the Bulgarian population aged 18-24 with at most lower secondary education and who are currently not in further education or training, or the so-called early leavers, has dropped from 20.5% in 2005 to 12.5% in 2012.

In 2010, this percentage was 13.9%. The EU target for Bulgaria is set at 11%.

The data was released Thursday by Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU.

Bulgaria is also the only country in the EU where on average the proportion of female dropouts (12.5% in 2012) is higher than the one of males (12.1%).

The percentage of people with tertiary education in Bulgaria was 24.9% in 2005, 27.7% in 2010, dropping to 26.9% in 2012 (33.6% for women and 20.5% for men) with the target set at 40%.

In 2012, the share of population aged 30 to 34 in the EU having completed tertiary education was 36%, while the share of early leavers from education and training was down to 13%.

Improving the EU's performance in education is one of the key objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy, adopted by the European Council in June 2010. Targets on education are to increase the proportion of persons having completed tertiary education and to reduce the number of early leavers from education and training.

In the EU, 36% of persons aged 30 to 34 had completed tertiary education in 2012, compared with 34% in 2010 and 28% in 2005. The Europe 2020 strategy's target is that at least 40% of the population in this age group in the EU should have completed tertiary education in 2020.

For early leavers from education and training, 13% of the population aged 18-24 in the EU had at most lower secondary education and were currently not in further education or training, compared with 14% in 2010 and 16% in 2005. The target for 2020 for the EU is to reduce the share to below 10%.

Proportion of those aged 30-34 who completed tertiary education ranges from 22% in Italy, Romania and Malta, to 51% in Ireland, 49.9% in Cyprus, 49.6% in Luxembourg and 48.7% in Lithuania and the lowest in Italy (21.7%), Romania (21.8%) and Malta (22.4%).

Eight Member States have already met or exceeded their 2020 national targets for this indicator (Denmark, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden).

On average in the EU, a higher proportion of women aged 30 to 34 had completed tertiary education than men (40.0% compared with 31.6%). This was true for almost all Member States, with the largest gaps in Estonia, Latvia and Slovenia.

For women, the proportion ranged from 23.2% in Romania to 57.9% in Ireland, while for men it varied between 17.2% in Italy and 50.4% in Luxembourg.

In 2012, the proportion of those aged 30 to 34 who had completed tertiary education increased compared with 2005 in all Member States. The proportion in particular almost doubled in Latvia (from 18.5% in 2005 to 37.0% in 2012), the Czech Republic (13.0% and 25.6%) and Romania (11.4% and 21.8%).

Share of early leavers from education and training ranges from 4% in Slovenia to 25% in Spain

In 2012, the lowest proportions of the population aged 18-24 who had at most lower secondary education and were currently not in further education or training were observed in Slovenia (4.4%), Slovakia (5.3%), the Czech Republic (5.5%) and Poland (5.7%), and the highest in Spain (24.9%), Malta (22.6%) and Portugal (20.8%).

Nine Member States have already met or exceeded their 2020 national targets for this indicator (the Czech Republic, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia and Sweden).

In 2012, the proportion of early leavers from education and training decreased compared with 2005 in all Member States, except Poland and the United Kingdom. The most notable decrease was registered in Portugal(from 38.8% in 2005 to 20.8% in 2012).

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