Brussels – Almost all, but not all: according to Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, in 2024, 94.4 per cent of EU children aged between 3 and the age at which compulsory primary education begins took part in an early childhood education programme.
The EU regions classified at level 2 of the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) formed the Agency’s reference sample. This is a geographical classification system that divides the Union’s economic territory into three different levels of regions – NUTS 1, 2, and 3 – ranging from larger to smaller territorial units. Above NUTS 1 lies the “national” level of the Member States. In half of the regions where data were available (99 out of 198), the participation rate stood at 96 per cent, meeting the EU’s target for 2030. These cases were mainly found in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Spain, France, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, and Sweden.
Enrolment in early years education was below 85 per cent in 17 of the 198 regions for which data were available. These included all eight regions of Romania, two in the Czech Republic and two in Slovakia. This group also comprised the French island regions of Mayotte and Corsica, as well as one region each in Croatia, Austria, and Portugal. In Italy, Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, the Autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Marche, and Molise recorded figures of between 92 and 96 per cent. Lazio stood at 88.2 per cent.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
