Factors and consequences of student drop outs
Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory’s School Improvement Research identified four types of factors that lead to a student's dropping out of school. These factors are either school-related, student-related, community-related, and family-related.
The strongest school-related factor is poor academic performance. The US Department of Education relates that “students who repeated one or more grades were twice as likely to drop out than those who had never been held back, and those who repeated more than one grade were four times as likely to leave school before completion. “1
Student-related risk factors include addiction to vices and peer influences. Common examples are drug abuse and early pregnancy.
Support from the family plays a crucial role in preventing student from quitting school. Chaotic homes, financial instability can cause teenagers to be distracted and feel insecure.
On the other hand, poverty remains the strongest community-related factor leading to a student dropout. Students may lose the will to learn if within their community they do not see efforts to improve the environment and school facilities.
Lest one thinks that student dropout is just a student-, a family- or a school concern, this issue can lead to alarming consequences that can impact our country as a whole. Some of these are:
- Without school to occupy time and teachers to provide guidance, teenagers are more prone to violence and delinquency.
- Dropout students will not be able to fill the country’s eternal need for educated, highly-skilled workers. Either they will contribute to unemployment or will be forced to seek opportunities abroad (at most, doing blue-collar work).
- There is less likelihood of dropout students turning to entrepreneurs, especially in a country where support and resources are scarce.
- Lack of knowledge and maturity, as a result of early dropout, may not equip them to properly build family, raise children.
- Dropouts are more likely to depend on government support as they grow older.
While our country grapples with the problem of unemployment and low economic growth, it is worth looking at one of the possible roots of the problem and start finding ways to put students where they belong…in schools.
Did you know?
In the Philippines, dropout rate in secondary schools has increased from 9.55% 2000 to 14.30% in 2004.
Source: Department of Education
Source:
1 Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. “Reducing the Dropout Rate”. Retrieved January 22, 2007, from http://www.nwrel.org
