Girona's model offers blueprint for Catalonia
Girona is being cited as a leading example in addressing school absenteeism, as education equality organisation Equitat.org urges the Department of Education and Vocational Training to adopt similar models across Catalonia. The city has established both municipal and school-level absenteeism commissions, bringing together the Ajuntament, social services, Mossos d'Esquadra (regional police), educational guidance teams (EAP), education inspectors, and schools to coordinate responses. Equitat.org made the call on Tuesday during the launch of its report Absenteeism at School: A Pending Fracture in Catalonia, warning that without a standardised system, Catalonia cannot accurately track or respond to chronic absenteeism.
No unified data system in Catalonia
Currently, Catalonia lacks a centralised, standardised registry to monitor absenteeism, leaving schools and municipalities to use varying criteria and thresholds. The Department of Education does not maintain a shared database to identify how many students accumulate serious absences, where they are concentrated, or when intervention is most needed. The absence of reliable data has been exacerbated by Catalonia’s exclusion from the PISA 2025 results. Due to sampling errors during the testing phase between April and May 2025, 23.2% of selected students were excluded, far above the 5% threshold for validity. As a result, Catalonia cannot be compared internationally, depriving policymakers of a key benchmark.
We already have the technical capacity to detect cases early and coordinate action, but these tools are not evenly deployed across the territory.
Alarming absenteeism rates
The most recent comparable data dates to 2018, when 34.8% of students in Catalonia reported missing at least one day of school in the fortnight before the PISA test, the second-highest rate in Spain after Asturias (35.2%) and well above the Spanish average (29.6%) and OECD average (20%). More recent analysis cited in the report shows that 5.3% of secondary education (ESO) students accumulate over 10% unexcused absences. In medium-level vocational training (CFGM), that figure rises to 15.8%, with one in six students missing more than a quarter of the academic year. Elena Sintes, head of projects at Equitat.org, stressed that absenteeism often signals deeper disengagement from school, rooted in personal, family, academic, or social challenges. The issue is more prevalent among boys, students from socioeconomically vulnerable backgrounds, and certain immigrant communities, with higher concentrations in specific neighbourhoods and towns.
Calls for a coordinated response
The report calls for a unified information architecture with shared monitoring, standardised criteria, and clear governance between the Generalitat and local councils. This would allow for cross-referencing data, evaluating policy effectiveness, and targeting resources where needed. As a model, the report points to the Basque Country, where standardised reporting allows education authorities to receive monthly absenteeism data per student and school. In Biscay, this enables local councils to cross-reference with social services and trigger intervention protocols when absenteeism persists. Catalonia currently has a 13.5% rate of early school-leaving, still far from the European Union’s 2030 target of 9%. Without timely identification and intervention, Sintes warned, progress in reducing dropout rates could stall. Equitat.org is urging the Generalitat to institutionalise successful local models like Girona’s, ensuring that access to support does not depend on a student’s place of residence.
Primary sources: repositori.educacio.gencat.cat, serveiocupacio.gencat.cat. Reported by gerio.cat, elpais.com, CatalunyaPress.es, lavanguardia.com, Gerió Digital.
