The EU Education and Training Monitor is out! Is Europe on track?

On 12 November, the European Commission published the Education and Training Monitor 2025. This report presents the annual analysis of the recent development and trends on education and training systems across the 27 Member states. The 2025 edition provides a spotlight on STEM education and basic skills attainment, before zooming in on its classic chapters for each sector of learning. The specific focus of this year is aligned with the recent initiatives published under the Union of Skills. The Monitor contains three parts: a comparative report, a toolbox, and country reports.

The demand for STEM specialists to improve EU competitiveness appears centrally in this Monitor, despite instrumentalising education and training for specific labour market needs. This shift toward STEM fields risks undermining a more holistic approach to learning which might require the inclusion of arts of humanities, but also of key competences for lifelong learning.

Some of the findings are worrisome. The spotlight on basic skills identifies a strong connection between underachievement and socio-economic background of learners, raising concerns regarding equity. Digital skills are strongly related to the socio-economic background, with students whose parents do not hold a higher education degree more likely to under-perform in this area. Learners from affluent families outperform their less advantaged peers on civic knowledge. To mitigate this, the report reminds that trained teachers and parental involvement can address certain of these challenges.

On the positive side, the percentage of early school leaving is at an all time low with 9.4%, although there are still multidimensional disparities that impact student success, including their migration and socio-economic status, as well as their location, the overall results highlights that this tendency is declining.

Read the full report here