Abstract
Early school leaving (dropout) is aproblem in all education systems. In 2010 theEuropean Commission launched the Europe2020 strategy which included alist of measures to reduce the school dropout rates in the EU countries.
The aim of this paper is to analyse the issue of dropout in upper secondary education (ISCED 3) in the education systems of four post-communist Central European states (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia). The paper describes and compares the education systems of these countries and the important changes of their education policies after entering the EU.
The analysis ofEurostat data shows that despite the decline of the average early school leaving rate in theEU countries from 13.8% to 10.2% between 2010 and 2019, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia are among the four member states whose dropout rates are rising. Through an overview of research studies, this paper also identifies the dominant topics and"weak spots" related to early school leaving in these countries.