In recent years, many scholars have highlighted persistent difficulties faced by the European school systems to contest school dropout of immigrant students (dropouts, delays, grade retention, school evasion etc.). As noted by the Council of Europe, with regard to immigrant students the average rate of school dropout in the UE is double that native pupils. Considering this situation, the objective of the paper is, on the one hand, to identify the factors that contributed to increase a similar failure and, on the other hand, to understand how Europe is trying to reduce this phenomenon. In particular, my attempt is to explain what are the educational measures and strategies adopted by UE school systems not only to clash this phenomenon, but also to achieve the ambitious target, set by the European Commission in 2015, for reducing to below 10% the percentage of school dropout by 2020.
Keywords: school dropout, immigrant students, Europe, school policies, integration, language skills