In 2017, Croatia's dropout rate was 3.1%, which was in line with the EU target to have dropout rates throughout the Union below 10%. Last year, that average rate in the EU stood at 10.6%.
In terms of the benchmark called "Early childhood education and care from age 4 to starting age of compulsory primary education, Croatia legs behind the EU target of 95%, given that 75.1% of Croatian children in that age cohort were covered by early education.
Education Minister Blazenka Divjak, who attended the presentation of the publication, said that her department in cooperation with other ministries was investing efforts to bring Croatia closer to that target.
Stefaan Hermans, Director of Policy Strategy and Evaluation in the Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture at the European Commission, said that investing into education means investing into the future.
Croatia's public expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP stood at 4.8%, while the EU average in 2017 was 4.7%
The publication reads that "Croatia’s spending on education and training remains at the EU average, with a strong
focus on primary and tertiary education. The percentage of GDP spent on education and training in 2016 increased slightly by 0.1 percentage points to 4.8 % (EU average 4.7 %) and stands just above the pre-crisis high in 2008."
In Croatia, the proportion of 15 year-olds underachieving in Reading, Maths and Science was still worse than in the EU on average.
When it comes to adult participation in learning (age 25-64), Croatia's rate was a mere 2.3%, as against the EU average rate of 10.9%, and the benchmark is 15%.