 Early school living brings a cocktail of risks. These risks include a basic alienation and disconnection from society and social networks. It brings risks for mental health, for crime, for substance abuse, for unemployment, for poverty. So it brings a range of interconnected problems, not inevitably, but certainly it heightens it as a risk factor. This is a reason why it is of paramount importance that we keep a firm focus on early school living in future EU strategies. So early school living is directly relevant to a myriad of key policy goals across society. These include social inclusion, active citizenship and democracy, health and well-being, personal social fulfilment, employment, poverty prevention, leadership and creativity. So early school keeping young people meaningfully engaged in school is a vital pulse for keeping a vibrant, healthy and inclusive society across Europe. There is not just one magic trick or wand that's going to solve this issue. This is a complex multi-dimensional issue that requires multi-faceted solutions. Some of those will include, for example, bringing much more strategic planning between health ministries, education ministries and social services for multidisciplinary based teams in and around schools to deal with the complex needs that many vulnerable young people across Europe face today. We also need to address issues such as school climate issues. So the atmosphere in the school, positive relationships with teachers, anti-bullying strategies that are meaningful, that dialogue with students, as well as having firm anti-segregation and anti-discrimination policies to address issues of school climate. We also need to develop a focus, a stronger focus on initial teacher education for teachers' relational competences, their pedagogical competences, but also their cultural competences. So we need more initial teacher education reform on this issue. Students' voices and parents' voices are key as well. I think we need, in my view at least, to develop driving committees for inclusive systems in every school across Europe. These committees will be developed, composed of students, of parents, of range of professionals, as well as including teachers, obviously, to help drive reform for inclusive systems and a positive school climate across the system. We also need to look at key issues such as targeting particularly vulnerable groups. I think we need a more distinct strategy around that. So for example, there could be young people who've experienced trauma. You've also got many migrants who've experienced trauma, as well as obviously issues such as hearing the voices of the Roma minority about their experiences of school and what solutions they would suggest to make school a more meaningful place for them. There's also other groups, for example, parents who may be in prison and the children's separation anxiety from that group. There's a range of vulnerable groups, children in care is another group that we need to look at, so we need a much more focused approach for the subgroups and for distinct strategies for those groups. Firstly, all the ministries such as health, education and social affairs need to come together for a strong commitment for multidisciplinary teamwork around these issues. Teachers cannot solve all of the issues and the complexity of issues that schools face today. They play one key role, but we need a range of professionals to address the multifaceted complex needs. We also need initial teacher education reform as I've emphasised for pedagogical, cultural and relational competences of teachers. We need to address child poverty urgently as well and strategies around that. We need also to invest further in family support services linked with schools, also community-based one-stop shop services where you stop the fragmentation of local services to bring services together into one space so that a range of groups' needs can be met. There are many other priority issues, such as, for example, working with minorities to design systems that listen to their voices and meet their language needs. So there are a range of priorities that need to be firmly addressed today. Also, the issue I think needs to be a much firmer stance taken on anti-segregation policies and anti-discrimination policies as part of a multi-dimensional strategy that is urgently needed. It's important to recognise that early school leaving is one of the headlines. There's only two headline targets for education for the past decade across Europe. For ET 2020, reduction of early school leaving to 10% across Europe is one of only two headline targets for early school leaving. So it is of paramount importance and it has been a major policy priority across the EU for the past decade. Against that backdrop, we've been involved in developing an evaluation for the European Commission of the implementation of the Council Recommendation from 2011 for early school leaving prevention. So this has examined the implementation of the 2011 Council Recommendation across 37 countries and it also has involved 10 country case studies to analyse in depth the success factors, the implementation factors, which elements however have not been developed across different countries. Some countries have developed national strategies, others have integrated an approach to early school leaving prevention as part of wider education strategies but I think it's important to note that a large majority of countries across Europe have made a strong attempt and concerted attempt to address this vital social issue over the past decade. The overall picture is largely very positive. Though much still needs to be done. We see a reduction in 20 member states of early school leaving since 2011. We see also at a percentage level a reduction from 13.4% to 10.6% since 2011. So this is substantial progress. We see also that Portugal has had the largest decrease in early school leaving since 2011 over 11%. It has stagnated in eight countries out of the 28 in the EU. Two countries, it has increased early school leaving, only two out of 28, they are Slovakia and Sweden. The reasons why it may have stagnated, I think there's not just one answer. In some countries it may be that there has not been a national systematic strategy for early school leaving prevention, such as for example in Denmark and Luxembourg. Other reasons maybe for example in Slovakia you have a situation where they've only recently brought in a national strategy. So that may take time to be implemented and obviously needs resources for implementation. In Sweden there is an issue perhaps of increased migration and foreign nationals in the country but I don't think that is sufficient of itself to explain the heightened rates of early school leaving. As many other countries have also had increases in foreign nationals since 2011 and their rates have not increased so dramatically. So it suggests that there are other factors involved. We also see some countries like Ireland and the Netherlands where increases in foreign nationals have actually brought reductions in early school leaving because the foreign national population have performed better than the local population.