Brussels, 19/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - Almost half of students in upper secondary schools in the EU are following vocational courses, a new survey published by Eurostat, the EU's statistical office, on Monday 18 July has revealed.
Upper secondary school nominally provides preparation for high education, generally from the age of 14 or 16. The Eurostat survey reveals that, of the 22 million upper secondary students in the European Union in 2014, almost half (48%) were enrolled in vocational courses. The highest rates were in the Czech Republic (73%), Croatia (71%), and Austria and Finland (70% each). At the opposite end of the scale, rates of less than one third were recorded in Malta (13%), Cyprus (15%), Hungary (25%), Lithuania (27%) and Greece (31%).
Of the upper secondary students following vocational courses (that is, where skills and knowledge relevant to a specific occupation are taught), the majority were boys in all member states with the exceptions of Belgium (52% girls), Finland and the United Kingdom (51% each) and Sweden, where the genders were balanced. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)