The school dropout rate has historically been one of the critical issues in the Italian education system. Today, the percentage of early school leavers has decreased, to just above the European average (9.8% compared to 9.4%). However, social inequalities still weigh heavily: children of parents with low income and low levels of education, particularly in the South and on the islands, are 15 times more likely to drop out of school than children of graduates (23.9% compared to 1.6%).

There is also a problem of "implicit dispersion", i.e. the failure to achieve basic skills: 13.4% of children from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds face greater difficulties in achieving adequate levels of learning in the first cycle of secondary education (compared to 6% among others). The same pattern is repeated in the second cycle. How and where can action be taken? Incentivised saving is proving particularly effective in preventing early school leaving and explicit and implicit dispersion. The UVI illustrates the evaluation of an Italian programme, WILL-Educare al futuro.