Overview of special issue

Early school leaving (ESL) is a serious challenge for education authorities in many European countries. The post-pandemic period has only exacerbated this challenge that affects both the lives of the students and society in general. Not the least of these, of course, is the challenge to identify good practices which has been the focus of the Erasmus+ project (2019-1-ES01-KA201-065362) ‘Promoting Inclusion to Combat Early School Leaving (PICESL)’. Especially noteworthy is the role of mapping practices preventing disengagement resulting in ESL. Education is key to the eradication of inequalities and schools together with parent and communities must work to increase measures to ameliorate ESL; this must be at the forefront of everything they do. While much has been written about ESL in the post-pandemic period, one must remember that the challenges of COVID-19 only highlighted the ongoing challenges and shortcomings of school systems even as there is every reason to honour how specific institutions confronted an unprecedented crisis. Unique about this special issue is that it would provide an ‘international’ point of view by including articles from different regions around the world seeking to contribute to prevent disengagement and leaving from education and training and to explore the measures for educational reintegration. The first article presents a study which investigates Spanish teachers’ perspectives of school dropout factors and the perceived inspiring practices to prevent ESL. Teachers described mainly experiences at the instructional and relational level (micro level) and appeared to be less cognisant of the institutional/systemic level of prevention of ESL (macro level). The article argues the need to execute practices addressed to all students rather than special programmes for special students (migrants, gypsies, students with special capacities, etc.). The second article focuses on practices implementable at the classroom level, exemplify cognitive, behavioural, and socio-emotional engagement, and foster school-family relationships, and which can be adapted by teachers and parents. The work underlines the ways in which students, parents, teachers, and administrators can best use these practices pro-actively to support students to continue engaged in learning.