Study on supporting school innovation across Europe : case study 7 : Lithuania, Lithuania

Lithuania was chosen for this study as one of the relatively disadvantaged NUTS-2 regions in the EU. To set the context for the further case study, some socio-economic indicators are presented below and compared to the EU-28 average. In Lithuania: - Unemployment rate was 9.1% in 2015 - slightly below the EU-28 average of 9.4% (Eurostat, 2016); - Youth unemployment rate for the age group 15-24 was 16.3% in 2015, while in the EU-28 it was equal to 20.3% (Eurostat, 2016); - The percentage of youth neither in employment nor in education and training (NEET aged 15-24) was 9.2% in 2015, which is below the EU-28 average of 12% (Eurostat, 2016); - The percentage of early leavers from education and training (aged 18-24) was 5.5% in 2015 - two times less than the EU-28 average (Eurostat, 2016); - The proportion of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion was higher than the EU-28 average in 2015, respectively 29.3% and 23.7% (Eurostat, 2016); - GDP per capita was 75 in PPS (where EU-28=100) (Eurostat, 2016).