School Dropouts: Different Faces in Different Countries

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School Dropouts Different Faces in Different
Countries

• Monitoring Initiative of the Network of Education
  Policy Centers
• OSI Education Conference
• Budapest, July 2005

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PARTICIPATING COUNTRIES

• Eastern Europe (Estonia,Latvia, Slovakia)
• South East Europe (Albania)
• Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan)
• Mongolia

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RESEARCH GOALS

• To identify the depth of the problem
• To raise awareness about the issue of school
  dropouts
• To assess the actual influence of different
  factors
• To assess the content and implementation of
  existing regulations / legislation
• To develop recommendations based on the findings
  
• To provide background for advocacy process on
  DO issue

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METHODOLOGY

• Cabinet research
• Review of the literature
• Analysis of regulations and legislation
• Field research
• Questionnaires
• Individual interviews
• Focus-groups

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Sampling
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Dropouts Common pitfalls

• Definitions they differ among and within
  countries
• Statistics no reliable, comparable and
  consistent data
• Misreporting blame culture or school funding
  depends on the enrollment

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Dropouts common reasons

• Poverty
• Lack of motivation
• Family factors
• School climate
• Poor academic achievements

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Problems of Non-Attendance and Dropping-out of
Secondary Schools in Kazakhstan

• Education Policy Analysis Center
• Sange Research Agency
• Almaty, 2005

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Country context

• Drop-out is a hidden problem - officially 0.2
  (Vseobuch)
• For years of independence new groups of children
  at risk emerging
• street children,
• children from disadvantages families
• oralmans (Kazakh repatriate from China, Iran,
  Mongolia, Uzbekistan, etc),
• social orphans.

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Kazakhstan key factors

• Lack of motivation
• Poverty
• Migration
• Home environment
• Conflicts with teachers or school administrators

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Kazakhstan key recommendations

• Legislation
• Developing clear definitions of drop-outs,
  non-attendees, non-enrolled, etc.
• Sharing responsibilities between different actors
• Raising effectiveness of Vseobuch program

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Kazakhstan key recommendations

• Statistics
• Coordination between involved agencies
• Creation of common data base
• Conducting regular statistical research
• Curriculum
• Child-oriented content
• Child-oriented methods of teaching
• Teachers training

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Factors Hindering Completion of Basic Education
In Latvia
Centre for Public Policy PROVIDUS

• Indra Dedze
• Maiga Kruzmetra
• Solvita Lazdina
• Ingrida Mikiko

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Compulsory Education in Latvia
The Law on Education and the Law on
Comprehensive Education provide that the basic
education or the education of 9 forms that starts
at the age of 7 is compulsory. This provision is
in force till the age of 18
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Definitions

• A dropout or a child, who has dropped out of
  education process a pupil who has not completed
  basic education and no longer attends school .
• Children on the verge of dropping out pupils
  who have not attend school for six months and
  thus are unable to meet the demands set for basic
  education.

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Latvia Key Findings

• Parents have no close links with the school
• Dropouts were not involved in school activities
• Some of the pupils have taken paid employment
• Dropouts were failing in a specific group of
  subjects
• Pupils had low motivation to study and problems
  with discipline
• Family characteristics - families have changed
  their place of residence, the majority of kids
  come from families with 1-2 children, one or even
  both parents are employed lack of close family
  ties between pupils and parents

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Latvia Key Recommendations

• Ministry of Education and Science
• To develop clear and systematic scheme for
  reintegrating the pupils on the verge of dropping
  out into education,
• To carry out research when exactly motivation to
  learn starts disappearing,
• The Centre for Curricula Development and
  Examinations (ISEC)
• To review the program contents and curricula
  according to the ability level of the largest
  part of the pupils,
• To ensure closer links of the contents with real
  life.

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Latvia Key Recommendations

• Ministry of Education and Science, Education
• Boards, Institutions of education
• To develop a better system School-pupil-parents
  to ensure regular exchange of information and
  joint action program.
• Teacher Training Institutions
• Instruct teachers how to work with pupils who
  have various motivation.
• Municipalities
• Ensure more extensive assistance of social
  pedagogues and psychologist in working with the
  drop-outs
• Together with career centres improve career
  choice assistance at schools.

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The Mongolian Drop Out Study
Mongolian Education Alliance in collaboration
with the Open Society Institute Educational
Support Program
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Summary of Findings
I. Definition(s) of Drop Out
The definition of DO varies depending on who is
defining it. The official terminology used by the
MOESC, in compliance with the Education Laws
requirement of mandatory enrolment in basic
education, defines dropouts as children at the
age of compulsory basic education (currently 7
through 16) who are not attending school.
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II. Information Base Registration and
Computation of School Drop Outs

• MOECS collects and processes statistical data
  using two standard forms.
• The centralized gathering of data in a particular
  aimag or local level on children aged 8-15 who
  entered the school in pursuit of basic education
  and dropped out, or who never entered the school.
  The form summarizes the number of children by
  grade, sex, age and reason for drop out.
• The non-centralized form The purpose of this form
  to monitor the move and change in number of
  pupils who studied at the previous academic year
  and successfully passed to the next grade, and
  pupils who newly enrolled. The methodology
  involves number of pupils in the previous
  academic year minus number of pupils who left the
  school plus number of newly registered or
  enrolled pupils.
• One serious flaw although information is
  elicited in terms of reason for school change,
  i.e., Transfer within the aimag or transfer to
  other aimag, city, which is an indicator, there
  is no established controlling or monitoring
  system to determine if children who transfer
  actually re-enter the school at the aimag or
  soum/bagh they migrate to.
• If the transfer occurs within the aimag, then the
  number of increased pupils at the aimag will be
  equal to number who transferred. However, at
  present these numbers are different.

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III. Comparison of Drop Out Rates by Different
Agencies

• According to the census of 2003, there are 17,671
  school dropouts nationwide.
• The 2003 Human Rights and Freedoms in Mongolia
  Status Report, National Human Rights Commission
  of Mongolia indicates, that there are 68,115
  dropped out in 2003. The UNICEF-NFE drop out
  survey reports shows that total of 40,000 drop
  outs for 2003. The MOECS and the National
  Statistics Office records, meanwhile, show a
  total of 11,953 dropouts for academic years
  2003-2004. As noted, none of the figures match.
• There is a 56,162 difference (17.55) between
  these 3 organizations figures but, no data is
  available explaining the difference, or for that
  matter the differences among all the figures. It
  is attributed the differences towards the various
  definitions of drop out and the lack of standard
  procedures and methods of counting dropouts.

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VI. Drop Out Reasons
Policy Focus Areas

• Poverty/low income or lack of means of
  subsistence
• Child-labor related reasons such as herding, need
  to earn a living to help support the family, and
  need to take care of siblings or older members of
  the family
• Migration to urban, rural areas, nomadic
  lifestyle and remote distance between home and
  school
• Lack of dormitories
• Teacher discrimination
• Systemic problems with the education system

Understudied Areas

• Physical and/or mental disabilities
• Lack of communication and socialization
  skills
• Bullying or peer discrimination
• Educational level of parents

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• V. Attitude towards education and drop out
• The survey showed that the drop out children
  themselves and parents value education highly.
  84 of parents and 73 of children regarded
  education essential for the future. In the
  transition period, most parents lost their belief
  in education and started withdrawing their
  children from school although traditionally,
  valued education highly.
• Drop out children attitude towards being a drop
  out
• The dropouts did not like to be called or call
  themselves dropouts and neither did their
  parents. They preferred to be called school
  leavers, avoiding the use of the word drop
  out. It is also noted the stigma children
  associates with the word drop out as though it
  meant someone who is out.
• VI. Gender Issue Boys Drop Out
• More boys never attended school or had to drop
  out since they had to herd (71.4) and need to
  work to help the family (61.5). The lack of
  means of family subsistence had a more direct
  effect on boys than girls. The main reason why
  girls drop out or never attend school was because
  of sickness (75).
•  
• VII. Decreasing Trend on the Drop Out Rate in
  Mongolia (or not)
• 2004 (19,388) and 2003 (17,671), there was an
  increase instead of decrease in the overall drop
  out rate in the whole of Mongolia between from
  2003-2004. Although the difference is noted only
  for one year, when the figures were compared with
  the 2003-2004 (11953) and 2004-2005(10770)
  figures the differences are striking.
•  
• VIII. Mongolian legislations and policies on drop
  out
• There is no explicit legislative enactment that
  addresses the drop out incidence the following
  policies are considered to prevent and alleviate
  the drop out rate in Mongolia.

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Policy Recommendations and Indicators

• 1. On the Definition(s) of Drop Out
• Nationwide information and awareness campaign on
  who a drop out is in order that standardized
  procedures could be set up properly identifying
  drop out and to avoid the current confusion on
  who a drop out is.
• The campaign should also focus on the negative
  impact of drop out on Mongolian society, but more
  importantly, on the Mongolian child.
• 2. On Registering and Recording Drop Out Rate
• Exhaustive policy review on the methods and
  procedures on the counting of drop out with the
  end view of instituting efficient data collection
  and record keeping systems and procedures from
  the bagh level to the central office of the
  MOECS.
• Institutionalized check and balance and cross
  referencing of data sources bearing in mind the
  political and economic implications of the
  politics of the statistics of drop outs.

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3. On Drop Out Reasons

• Poverty alleviation measures should be concerted
  and coordinated to provide sustainable employment
  opportunities and income generating initiatives
  especially for the population of rural Mongolia.
• The drop out issue should be treated as a
  separate concern, not lumped together with other
  poverty related issues in order that it would get
  the necessary government support and attention it
  deserves including corresponding budgetary
  appropriation
• Immediate review and reforms should be carried
  out to address and arrest the systemic problems
  plaguing the Mongolian educational system,
  including but not limited, to
• the review of the mandatory pre-school education
  provisions
• curriculum standards
• teacher skills and professional development
• the policy on teachers salaries making them
  contingent on student performance
• the prevailing practice of collecting money from
  students
• teacher discrimination
• lack of dormitory space
• Measures should be in place to protect and assist
  the disabled children

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4. On Legislation and Policies

• National policy enactment that would provide for
  the overseeing of the drop out incidence with
  appropriate penalty provisions and sanctions
  against those who cause or, are instrumental, in
  the dropping out of a child from school in order
  to avert the drop out rate.
• Oversight committees both at the central and
  local levels to monitor drop out cases in both
  areas.

5. Recommended Indicators on Drop Out

• -      Income level /poverty level
• -      Prolonged unexcused absences
• -      Transfer within the aimag or transfer to
  other aimag, city.
• -      Big family (4 or more children with 1 or 2
  children who already dropped out)
• -      Working after school
• - High rate of truancy

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School Dropout MonitoringSlovakia
Center for Education Policy - Orava
Association in cooperation with the Open Society
Institute - Budapest Open Society Foundation -
Bratislava
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Defining School Dropouts on the compulsory
education level

• Difficulty to make the line between dropping out
  and truancy
• International definitions of school dropouts are
  stricter - Slovakia officially does not
  acknowledge or record dropping out during
  10-year-long compulsory education, i.e. typically
  between 6 -16 years of age
• Slovakia definition student leaving the school
  system without finishing primary school (grade 9)

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Recording of School Dropouts in Slovakia

• Data collected by the Institute of Statistics
  and Prognosis in Education under the MoEd
• statistics available on student absenses per
  year,
• statistics available on grade repetition,
• statistics available on children completing
  compulsory education without finishing primary
  school.
• Lack of data on dropouts prior to finishing
  compulsory education years.

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Family and Social Circumstances of Dropout
Children

• Questionnaire conducted on a sample of 253
  children, their parents and teachers
• low education of parents majority of parents of
  dropout children have only 8 years of school,
  only 1 attended school for 16 years
• large families 63 of dropout children come
  from families with 4 and more children
• poverty 97 of the families of dropout children
  live on less than 20 000 SKK per month

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Predicators of dropping out

• Behavioral problems
• aggressiveness, psychological and emotional
  problems
• Social relationships
• bad relationships with teachers, few or no
  friends in school
• School motivation, school results
• low belief in value of education, passive in
  classroom
• Family - school cooperation
• lack of communication, cooperation, support of
  education

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Slovakias recent legislative measures and
continued challenges

• 2002 Amendment to the School Law
• position of teacher assistant introduced
• preparatory grade included into school system
• 2003 Regulation
• child benefits withheld if child has more than 15
  hours of unexcused absense in school per month
  2002
• Regional differences
• education, social and economic levels differ
  among regions
• Roma community
• UNDP data for 1999 63 without completed
  primary education
• Insufficient and confusing system of education
  opportunities for school dropouts

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Recommendations

• New legislation new school law, transparent and
  effective system of alternative second chance
  schools, courses, supporting school governance
  and local governments
• Improving cooperation community and social work
  and councelling, communication and cooperation
  between school and family, support cooperation
  between individual institutions
• Supporting teacher education and in-service
  individualized approach of children, interactive
  teaching methods to support school motivation and
  school results
• Data collection ensure system of information on
  school dropouts on a yearly basis prior finishing
  of compulsory education years
• Create a clear and effective system of second
  chance schools and courses allow alternative
  education pathways

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Thank you for your attention!