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Is Extended Compulsory Education Effective in Reducing the Dropout Rates?

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents an analysis of statistical data on various characteristics of educational systems and educational efficiency (collected on a sample of 33 European countries, members or candidate countries to the EU), which was conducted in order to assess the efficiency of the extended compulsory education regarding the reduction of dropout rates. Regression analysis was used to examine if the number of years of compulsory education could be a relevant predictor of the dropout rate and of the expected educational attainment. Additionally, quasi-experimental methodology was applied to evaluate the effects of the extended compulsory education on the reduction of dropout rates. The results of the regression analyses have shown that the duration of compulsory education, after partializing out the effects of other relevant variables, does not correlate significantly with the dropout rates. Furthermore, the quasiexperimental approach to the analysis of the extended compulsory education could not prove clearly enough the efficiency of such an intervention. The observed reductions in the dropout rates could be attributed to a long-term trend or nonsystematic temporal variations, rather than to the intervention itself. However, the existing data cannot substantiate a conclusion of inefficiency of the extended compulsory education – due to the inability of monitoring the long-term effects, but only observing the direct ones.

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