Education officials from Spain and Bulgaria met in the northwestern city of Edirne Tuesday with their Turkish counterparts for the "Early School Leaving" project.

With school attendance posing a serious problem, inspectors from the three countries will visit schools to examine the cases of dropouts and delve into factors causing the phenomenon.

Speaking at a press conference about the project, Hüseyin Özcan, head of the local education authority in Edirne, said dropouts have long been a problem plaguing many countries and they would look for ways to promote attendance among students.

Özcan noted Turkey already had such a project where education officials work to encourage parents to send their children to school.

Cipriano Foyo, who heads a union of school inspectors in Spain, said European Union countries were hoping to drop below the attendance rate average of 10 percent and said it was a significant challenge for them.

"This is a problem requiring a multi-dimensional solution. It needs the coordination of teachers, students and all other elements contributing to the problem," Foyo said.

Biserka Mihaleva, a Bulgarian representative for school inspectors, said the problem in Bulgaria was mostly related to early marriages that force girls to drop out of the school.