Almost 95% of children in the EU aged three to the start of compulsory primary school were enrolled in early childhood education in 2024.
The participation rate across the bloc stood at 94.4%, Eurostat reported in a release on Thursday.
About half of EU regions with available data had already met the EU’s 2030 target of 96.0% participation — 99 out of 198 regions — with many of those areas in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Spain, France, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Portugal and Sweden.
Twenty regions recorded near-universal participation, with nine of them in France and five in Belgium.
Five capital regions reported 100% participation: Brussels, Ile-de-France, Grad Zagreb, Budapest and the Warszawski stołeczny region.
Lowest participation concentrated in 17 regions
Participation was below 85.0% in 17 regions, with lower rates mainly in eastern EU countries, including all eight regions of Romania and two regions each in Czechia and Slovakia, Eurostat said.
The group also included the French island regions of Mayotte and Corse, plus one region each in Croatia, Austria and Portugal.
