Inversión educativa y abandono escolar temprano. Análisis comparado entre Comunidades Autónomas

Abstract

This work is shown as a possibility of approaching the current Spanish Educational System, through a descriptive comparative analysis of the relationship between investment in education and early school drop-out rate. The main purpose is to approach the knowledge of this degree of relationship, taking specific data of the investment made by each Autonomous Community and City and per student as well as the dropout rate. On the methodological level, it is worth highlighting that it is a comparative study between the 17 Autonomous Community and 2 Autonomous Cities that make up the Spanish Educational System. It is a quantitative research with intra-national comparison units. The units of comparison that have been taken into account for this study are both economic and academic. On the one hand, the economic values refer to the investment made by each of the Autonomous Communities and Autonomous Cities in the period from 2013 to 2015, both in general and specifically in the Secondary stage and per student. On the other hand, educational values refer to early school dropout rates in the same period, from 2013 to 2015. When comparing both variables, they are presented with contradictory realities that urge us to think that the phenomenon of early school leaving is a situation that it does not depend exclusively on educational investment. Therefore, the results of the investment have to be measured with caution and in the medium term, being able to start from there, debates about the quantity, quality and way of distribution of the same.