The Regional Secretary for Education and Culture highlighted the "very positive downward trend" of early dropout rate in education and training that was registered in the Azores in 2016, representing two percentage points compared to 2015.
 
"Despite being short of the desired goal, the fact is that, over the years, the early school dropout rate in the Azores is following a very positive downward trend," Avelino Meneses stressed, adding that the Region registers the "sharpest" decreased compared to the rest of the country.
 
Commenting on the latest figures released by the National Statistics Institute (INE), Avelino Meneses pointed out that the rate in the archipelago stood at "60%" in 1998, which was totally unacceptable; while in 2016 it reached "a more tolerable figure of 27%."
 
Over the years, the evolution of the early school dropout rate in the Azores "has carried two signals, both positive." In this regard, the Regional Secretary noted the fact that Azorean young people seek additional training to complement compulsory education and they "can enter faster into the labour market."
 
These signs also mean that "the training and knowledge are the basis of everything" and that "the peak of the economic and social crisis is increasingly a past record, a past we want to become increasingly distant," added the government official.
 
The data released by the National Statistics Institute (INE) indicate that the early dropout rate in education and vocational training in the Azores fell last year from 28.8 to 26.9 points, while in Madeira it fell from 23.6 to 23.2 points. There was an increase from 12.9 to 13.3 points in the remaining national territory.