European and national policies on Vocational Education and Training (VET) need to be informed by sound and internationally comparable statistical evidence. The VET country statistical overviews are concise, descriptive and user friendly statistical reports. For each country, they quantify and compare key aspects of VET and lifelong learning. The selection is based on the indicators' policy relevance and their importance in achieving the Europe 2020 objectives.
VET indicators for Spain for the last available year
Index numbers (EU=100)
NB: The index numbers are derived from data summarised in the table. Data in the table have been rounded to one or two decimal places. The calculation of index numbers is instead based on not rounded data.
Spain’s performance on a range of indicators selected to monitor progress in VET and lifelong learning across the European Union (EU) is summarised below. The chart compares the situation in Spain with that of the EU, based on the most recent data available (this differs by indicator). Data in the chart are presented as an index where the EU average equals 100. If the index for a selected indicator for Spain is 100, then its performance equals the EU average. If the index is 90, its performance is 90% of (or 10% below) the EU average. If the index is 200, Spain’s performance is twice (or 200%) the EU average. For some indicators, such as early leavers from education and training, a country is performing better if its score is below that of the EU average.
Data on which the index is calculated are presented in the table, which also shows developments over time. A technical definition of each indicator is provided in the annex.
Key words
Access, attractiveness and flexibility
Based on 2015 data, the percentage of all upper secondary students participating in IVET in Spain is 35.2%, below the EU average of 47.3%. At 1.2%, a very small share of IVET students are involved in combined work- and school-based training compared with the EU average of 28.4%.
Spain has proportionally fewer adults (9.4%) involved in lifelong learning than the EU as a whole (10.8%). and is below the EU average target (15%) set by the strategic framework Education and training 2020. The proportions of older adults and adults with relatively low qualifications participating in lifelong learning are also below the corresponding EU averages. However, participation of unemployed adults in lifelong learning is higher than in the EU: 11.0% compared with 9.6%.
Based on 2010 CVTS data, employer provision of training is also high: the percentage of enterprises providing training to their staff was 75% in Spain compared with 66% across the EU; the percentage of employees receiving employer-sponsored CVT courses was 48%, also higher than the EU average of 38%. This is also true for employees of small firms (35% in Spain compared to 25% for the EU average).
Skill development and labour market relevance
In 2014, public expenditure on IVET (ISCED 3-4) as % of GDP was markedly lower in Spain (0.34%) than in the EU generally (0.54%). Short-cycle VET (ISCED 5) provides an important contribution to raising educational attainment at tertiary level. Graduates from short-cycle VET programmes accounted for 34.9% of all first time graduates at tertiary level, well above the EU average (9.0%). In contrast, training to support innovation is provided by 21.5% of innovative enterprises, which is much lower than the EU average of 44.8% (data for 2014). The percentage of STEM graduates from upper secondary was at 22.6% in 2015, below the EU average of 30.8%. The average number of foreign languages learned in IVET equals 0.3 in 2015, lower than the EU average of 1.0.
The employment rate for IVET graduates (aged 20-34) at ISCED 3-4 (71.7%) is lower than the EU average of 78.1%. Their employment rate is 3.9 percentage points higher than for graduates from general education (below the EU average premium of 5.7); their employment rate is also 14.1 percentage points higher than for graduates with lower-level qualifications (again a positive premium but lower than the EU average premium of 23.4). All these employment figures relate to 2016 and exclude young people in further education and training.
Overall transitions and labour market trends
In this section all data refer to 2016 unless otherwise stated.
At 19.0%, the share of early leavers from education and training is significantly higher than the EU average of 10.7%. Although this percentage has decreased over recent years (by 9.2 percentage points between 2010 and 2016), it is still above the Europe 2020 average target (10%) and also the national target (15%).
The unemployment rate of 20 to 34 year-olds, at 26.0%, is slightly above the rate in 2010 (24.8%) and is significantly higher than the EU average of 11.8%. The employment rate of recent graduates, at 68.0%, it is much lower than the EU average of 78.2%. The employment rate for 20 to 64 year-olds (63.9%) is also lower than in the EU (71.0%).
The percentage of adults who have low-level educational attainment (41.7%) is considerably higher than the EU average (at 23.0%). More favourably, the percentage of 30 to 34 year-olds with tertiary-level educational attainment at 40.1% is higher than the EU average of 39.1%. This percentage is at the Europe 2020 average target (40%) but still below Spain’s national target (44%), and it is below than the percentage of 2010 (at 42.0%). The NEET rate in Spain (19.1%) is above the EU average (15.2%).
Score on VET indicators in Spain and in the EU, 2010,
last available year and recent change
EU refers to EU-28, unless otherwise specified. Arrows ↗ or ↘ signal a positive or negative change. Arrow → indicates: no change.
(A) UOE back reconstruction of 2010 values based on ISCED 2011 not yet available. (B) AES 2011, used as proxy for 2010 baseline. (C) 2014 b flags in Eurostat online tables ignored on the basis of other relevant Eurostat metadata. (D) Forecast made in 2016. (E1) Based on 28 countries, with partial information for NL. (E2) Based on 28 countries, with partial information for EL, ES, NL, PL, RO. (E3) Based on 28 countries, with partial information for IT, NL. (E4) Based on 23 countries (missing: DK, EL, HR, IT, PT), with partial information for IE and FR. (E5) Based on 23 countries (missing: DK, EL, HR, IT, PT), with partial information for IE and FR. (E6) Based on 28 countries, with partial information for DK, EL, NL. (E7) Based on 25 countries (missing: HR, IT, UK), with partial information for BE, CZ, DK, DE, EE, EL, LU, NL, PL, SE. (E8) Based on 25 countries (missing: IE, FR, UK), with partial information for BE, EL, LU. (E9) Based on 26 countries (missing: IE, UK), with partial information for DK, DE. (E10) Based on 28 countries. (b) Break after 2010, therefore baseline data not included. (u) Eurostat: ‘low reliability’. (z) Eurostat: ‘not applicable’. (e) Eurostat: ‘estimated’.
Country-specific report details
