In March 2010, the European Commission launched the Europe 2020 strategy ‘for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth’ in the EU. Education is a major pillar of the Europe 2020 strategy due to its long-run impact on economic growth, productivity, and social cohesion. The Europe 2020 strategy established two headline targets on early leavers from education and training and tertiary educational attainment at the EU level. This paper attempts to assess the Europe 2020 strategy for the education pillar in terms of convergence across countries. Despite the fact that every country in the EU has its own national targets in these two headline indicators, progress on the achievement of the Europe 2020 strategy requires convergence. Thus, even if the EU as a whole meets its targets in 2020, the existence of a growing divide between the best and worst performing countries would cast doubt on the prospects of real economic convergence and the sustainability of the process. Our empirical findings reveal the existence of convergence clubs in educational attainment and the early leavers rate, and points towards the idea of multi-speed transitional dynamics in Europe, calling into question the convergence in educational performance in the EU.

2010年3月，欧盟委员会在欧盟启动了“实现智慧，可持续和包容性增长的欧洲2020年战略”。由于教育对经济增长，生产力和社会凝聚力的长期影响，因此它是“欧洲2020”战略的主要支柱。《欧洲2020年战略》为欧盟范围内的教育和培训提早退学以及高等教育程度确立了两个主要目标。本文试图从各国之间的融合出发，评估欧洲2020年教育支柱战略。尽管欧盟的每个国家在这两个标题指标中都有其自己的国家目标，但要实现欧洲2020年战略仍需取得进展。因此，即使欧盟整体实现了2020年的目标，表现最佳的国家与表现最差的国家之间日益扩大的分歧将使人们对实际经济趋同的前景和进程的可持续性产生怀疑。我们的经验发现揭示了在教育程度和早期离校率方面存在趋同俱乐部，并指出了欧洲多速过渡动力的构想，这使人们对欧盟教育绩效趋同提出了质疑。