School Drop-Outs
Education
Education is the basic requirement for human development. With education, employment opportunities are broadened and income levels are increased. The development of an individual and the progress of a nation depend on education. It is the principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values and thus is the strongest force in the development and the growth of a child in preparing him/her to be responsible,intelligent and capable citizen.
Education is also equally important to improve the women s status and autonomy.It increases the confidence and decision making power with the household. In India, although the percentage of literacy is rising, what is alarming is that the number of illiterate children in the age group 6 to 14 years is also increasing.
School dropout and school completion have been burning issues confronting general and special educators and school leaders for a long time. Schools and government agencies have made some efforts to deal with these issues.
Why do children dropout of the schools?
The reasons for school dropout vary. Some drop out of schools voluntarily while others are forced to do so under terrible circumstances.
School dropout is a universal fact. Whatever be the reason, the mere fact that a child is not completing her/his school education is not virtuous. Such children, many a times fail to be an asset for the nation given their inability to contribute in any way.
No reason can be big enough and act as a replacement for school education. It forms the base of a person’s life making them efficient in all disciplines.
Poverty, availability and accessibility are the three big reasons why children drop out of school.
There are many reasons why a child might drop out from school, which range from migration of families and child marriage, to lack of school infrastructure such as drinking water and toilets.
When a family is not financially secure, prioritizing a child’s education takes a backseat. Post-Class V, distance to school also tends to increase, and parents deem it unsafe for a child, especially girls, to travel far.
The video below shows how the children travel to school, in a dangerous way..
Lack of interest
It is usually found that every class of students has some of those pupils who refuse to show
any attention to the subjects being taught. Their lack of interest is caused by their lack of
attention in whatever is being taught.
The family background of the students
There is often a clash between the family values and those of the school. Frequently, their
parents have dropped out of school themselves. The students come from families from low
socio-economic backgrounds, where there are many other children.
The major reasons cited by the households for the dropout were „children were not interested in studies‟, „cost was too much‟, „children were required for household work‟ and also for work outside to contribute to family income. Nearly 6 percent of the girls dropped out of school when they got married.
School related factors, like poor infrastructure, lack of teachers, etc, were contributing for 15 percent dropout among girls and 4 percent among boys. It is important to emphasis here that improving the school infrastructure, quality of education and huge investment in school education can only reduce the extent of dropout to a limited extent.
Unless and until there is considerable improvement in the economic status of households and change in the social attitudes of parents, achieving the goal of universalisation of school education will remain a major challenge for India.
Education is the basic requirement for human development. With education, employment opportunities are broadened and income levels are increased. The development of an individual and the progress of a nation depend on education. It is the principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values and thus is the strongest force in the development and the growth of a child in preparing him/her to be responsible,intelligent and capable citizen.
Education is also equally important to improve the women s status and autonomy.It increases the confidence and decision making power with the household. In India, although the percentage of literacy is rising, what is alarming is that the number of illiterate children in the age group 6 to 14 years is also increasing.
School dropout and school completion have been burning issues confronting general and special educators and school leaders for a long time. Schools and government agencies have made some efforts to deal with these issues.
Why do children dropout of the schools?
The reasons for school dropout vary. Some drop out of schools voluntarily while others are forced to do so under terrible circumstances.
School dropout is a universal fact. Whatever be the reason, the mere fact that a child is not completing her/his school education is not virtuous. Such children, many a times fail to be an asset for the nation given their inability to contribute in any way.
No reason can be big enough and act as a replacement for school education. It forms the base of a person’s life making them efficient in all disciplines.
Poverty, availability and accessibility are the three big reasons why children drop out of school.
There are many reasons why a child might drop out from school, which range from migration of families and child marriage, to lack of school infrastructure such as drinking water and toilets.
When a family is not financially secure, prioritizing a child’s education takes a backseat. Post-Class V, distance to school also tends to increase, and parents deem it unsafe for a child, especially girls, to travel far.
The video below shows how the children travel to school, in a dangerous way..
Lack of interest
It is usually found that every class of students has some of those pupils who refuse to show
any attention to the subjects being taught. Their lack of interest is caused by their lack of
attention in whatever is being taught.
The family background of the students
There is often a clash between the family values and those of the school. Frequently, their
parents have dropped out of school themselves. The students come from families from low
socio-economic backgrounds, where there are many other children.
The major reasons cited by the households for the dropout were „children were not interested in studies‟, „cost was too much‟, „children were required for household work‟ and also for work outside to contribute to family income. Nearly 6 percent of the girls dropped out of school when they got married.
School related factors, like poor infrastructure, lack of teachers, etc, were contributing for 15 percent dropout among girls and 4 percent among boys. It is important to emphasis here that improving the school infrastructure, quality of education and huge investment in school education can only reduce the extent of dropout to a limited extent.
Unless and until there is considerable improvement in the economic status of households and change in the social attitudes of parents, achieving the goal of universalisation of school education will remain a major challenge for India.
Kudos! The way you express about need of education is useful and I suggest an idea to avoid the negligence of drop out of so and so reason.
ReplyDeleteIn each and every area, we can make a team who are interested to do volunteer work and we can make them connected to Sponsor's, social workers, NGO's also. So that it could be an initiative to reduce dropout of students education.
Thanks Geetha. And yeah sure let's work on it together.
DeleteYour Blog is very informative and contains valuable points to understand the factors behind the School Dropouts. Each and Every Parents need awareness of Education Values providing to their children. The points which you shared " „children were not interested in studies‟, „cost was too much‟, „children were required for household work‟ and also for work outside to contribute to family income are really true. Thanks for Sharing!
ReplyDeleteThanks Maha.Let us work together to stop the school drop outs.
Delete