Explicit and implicit school leaving: how to combine the two measures?

Abstract

Insufficient mastery of fundamental skills hinders entry into the labor market and, more broadly, impedes the attainment of a high quality of life. Early Leavers from Education and Training (ELET), defined by ISTAT as the proportion of 18 to 24-year-olds holding at most a secondary school leaving certificate and not currently enrolled in any educational or training program, serves as the established indicator for early school leaving. This metric is standardized at the European level. The European Community had set a target for Italy to achieve a 10% ELET rate by 2020. In 2020, Italy's ELET rate stood at 14.2%, decreasing to 9.8% in 2024. However, ELET data alone do not fully capture the scope of the early school leaving problem. Students who complete upper secondary education without acquiring the minimum required competencies are not accounted for in this calculation. INVALSI data allows for the observation of this phenomenon, which we term Implicit Leavers from Education and Training (ILET). Implicit school leaving constitutes a problem of equal significance to explicit early school leaving. Quantifying the share of ILET is challenging, but since 2019, INVALSI assessments have provided a representation of this phenomenon. Individuals who, despite graduating, do not achieve at least Level 3 in the Italian language and Mathematics tests, and who fail to reach Level B1 in Reading and Listening in English, possess competence levels aligning with the educational objectives set for eighth-grade students—considerably below the expected proficiency for their educational attainment. The ability to measure the overall phenomenon of school leaving furnishes schools and policymakers with crucial information. This paper aims to estimate the total school leaving rate by statistically matching data from ISTAT (for ELET) and INVALSI (for ILET). A general dispersion estimate will be derived using ISTAT data for ELET and INVALSI data for ILET at the regional level.