European Forum for
Freedom in Education

From early childhood curiosity to early school leaving

???Compulsory Education???
Giving all young people a future

Tuesday 13 – Thursday 15 May 2008, Brussels
Venue and co-organiser: vzw Foyer asbl
Werkhuizenstraat -25- rue des Ateliers
Brussel 1080 Bruxelles

This Colloquium addresses one of the five benchmarks of the EU “Education and Training 2010” work
program, namely the problem of early school leavers. One in six young people in the 27 countries of
the European Union leaves school with no more than lower secondary education and does not
participate in any kind of education or training after this point.

This statistic suggests that those young people have somehow lost interest in learning or at least in
formal learning. At the same time it is known that children are born learners and are keen to
discover new things. So at some time during their school careers something seems to happen that
obstructs this curiosity and impedes their willingness to learn within traditional school structures and
subject areas. And as dropping out of school is an active way of showing disaffection, the number of
early school leavers may just be the tip of the iceberg.

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