Education in Europe

• Author: Constantin S.
• Pages: 211-216

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov

Series V: Economic Sciences • Vol. 10 (59) No. 2 - 2017

Education in Europe

Sanda CONSTANTIN1

Abstract: The paper presents some indicators used to analyse the educational system. The

indicators are: “at least upper secondary educational attainment”, “tertiary educational

attainment”, and “employment rates of recent graduates”. All indicators were analysed

using information from EUROSTAT. This analysis focused on the European Union (28

countries) as well as on Romania. This paper analysed the differences and also the

similarities between the evolution of those indicators at the two presented levels. We have

also presented the highest levels as well as the lowest ones in some European countries.

Key-words: education, graduates, employed

1. Introduction

The importance of the educational system is well known or at least it should be.

In the past years, many employers complained about the lack of labor force

and qualified employees. That is why this paper aims to analyse these two important

aspects of the labor market, taking into consideration three indicators referring to the

rate education, upper secondary and tertiary system and also to the employment rate

of recent graduates. The objective is to analyse the evolution of those indicators in

order to observe the number of persons qualified for the needs of the labor market

and to determine the employment rate of those graduates to see if there is a link

between those indicators.

2. Material and methods

The paper used EUROSTAT indicators, time series and graphs.

All three indicators are set at European Union and Romanian level. According

to Eurostat, the first indicator “at least upper secondary educational attainment”

refers to ISCED (International Standard Classification of Education) 2011 level 3-8

for data from 2014 onwards and to ISCED 1997 level 3-6 for data up to 2013. The

indicator is based on the EU Labour Force Survey. In addition to this, EUROSTAT

1 Transilvania University of Braşov, sanda.constantin@unitbv.ro