The degree of participation of the population in education is an indicator that provides an image of the chance of sustainable development, both at the level of local communities and at the regional and national level. In Romania, over time, the education system has undergone numerous transformations that tried to harmonize this sector with the characteristics of technological, economic and social developments, as a member state of the European Union. The analysis carried out and presented in this paper highlights the fact that, unfortunately, between Romania and the other EU member states there are significant differences regarding the participation of the population in education, as well as its level of education, discrepancies that are accentuated at the level of the development regions. Moreover, in many cases the developments are divergent, compared to the developments at the EU level.