Why Students Do Not Finish School - Essay Example

? Why Do Not Finish School Introduction and aims leaving school before finishing have for long been a challenge to educators, employers and parents. Due to the increase in the minimum expected skill in employment and even educational entry points, the importance of completing every level of academics stands. But despite this, there has been an increase in the number of students not finishing school. As such, borrowing from secondary sources, this paper seeks to determine the factors that cause students not to finish school and give possible solutions to the problem. Defining the term “early school leaving,” otherwise referred to as “school dropout,” has proven to be complex. The challenge has been on determining the period of time in which a student spends out of school for this to be considered as dropout. The same challenge persists in consideration of those who deliberately leave school for work and join adult education later. Legality in school dropout exists as a majority of provinces cap mandatory schooling at 16 years of age (White & Kelly, 2010). This paper therefore considers leaving school without finishing as not being registered anymore after regular registration the previous year, adopted from the definition by Aud et al. (2011). Situation Adopting the 2009 statistics from the National Centre for Education Statistics, NCES cited by Aud et al. (2011), 8.2% of Americans aged between 16 and 24, making up about 3.17 million people were yet to attain high school degree and were not enrolled in school either. For ethnic minorities, the rates were even higher with the same profile of students dropping out of school at the rates of 10.7%, 15.9% and 17.9% for African Americans, American Indians and the Hispanics. In urban centers, White and Kelly (2010) observe worsening of the situation. Problem This worrying trend has had researchers engage in studies to determine the factors causing students not to finish school, the first being demographics. According to White and Kelly (2010), demographic indicators of the risk of a student not finishing school include the student being from a low-income family, being male, being older than the average of the students in a grade and being from an ethnic or racial minority group. It is documented that students from the bottom 20% income range families are 6 times at risk of dropping out of school as compared to those from the top 20% income range families. In the US, African Americans and Hispanics being among the minority communities have been noted to be more at risk due to what Blue and Cook (2004) identify as subjective norms, attitudes and perceived behavioral control The second critical factor that would cause a student not to finish school has been noted to be performance. As early as eighth grade, performance has been observed by researchers as a risk factor causing students to drop out of school. Studies by White and Kelly (2010) indicate that at eighth grade, a student exhibits 80% chance of dropping out if such a student failed in English/or mathematics and attended school not more than 80%. Closely related to performance would be the aspect of grade retention cited by Blue and Cook (2004) which has been noted to cause students to be overage at their grades which negatively impacts on students’ self-esteem, school engagement, peer relations and socio-emotional adjustment. Grade retention would not fix the problem but would rather send a message of failure to the respective students. Finally, psychosocial factors could be said to influence non-completion of schooling as related to motivation and personality of the students (White & Kelly, 2010). The engagement of the students, teachers and parents in education could directly predict pursuance of schooling. The lack of adult engagement in a student’s educational process poses greater risk for such a student not to finish schooling. The multifaceted nature of engagement includes identifying the appropriate school for the student and the student’s development of positive relationship in school with teachers and peers. Students less motivated by the school or teachers exhibit higher tendencies of dropping out. This observation could be well explained using the Theory of Planned Behavior, TPB which postulates that intentions best predict behavior and the intentions would be predicted by perceived control, subjective norms and attitudes (Blue & Cook, 2004). Though these factors have been discussed separately, they could act simultaneously on a student to determine dropout risk. Solution To undertake appropriate measures that could help students remain in school, it would be critical to understand who takes the responsibility and how this could be fixed. It would be beneficial to improve school teaching curricula so as to make the school environment more engaging. Similarly, it would be important to improve instruction approach and access to support systems for struggling students including after school tuitions, summer schooling and Saturday schooling among others (Blue & Cook, 2004). Adult-student relationship in school should be fostered and the communication between the parents and the school enhanced so that the parents and teachers would work together with the students in determining the source of the problem and finding appropriate solution to encourage schooling. Finally, school administrators should ensure that the school climate fosters academics and discourages vices like discrimination and violence that could discourage other students from attending school (Aud et al., 2011). Evaluation Indeed, from these factors, one would identify students with tendencies of dropping out from school. Such students would be absent from school for over 50% of the required time, which Aud et al. (2011) translates to 45% chance of dropping out at the early grades, up to the ninth grade. Without appropriate action being undertaken, such studies would not add value to the society. Therefore, various solutions have been fronted by researchers. Even so, it would perhaps be important to identify the students with high likelihood of dropping out and schools that record high dropout rates. This would enable intervention at not only the student level but broadly at the school level. It would also be critical to determine interventions that would yield the best outcomes from the many available approaches. Conclusion Ensuring that students remain in school until completion has been a major challenge in the education sector as indicated by the high prevalence rates of school dropout. Demographics, performance and psychosocial factors intertwine to determine the risk of students not completing school. These factors point out to the effective approaches to undertake so as to encourage students to stay in school. Just as the multifaceted causes of the problem, intervention approaches should also adopt various strategies simultaneously for gainful results. References Aud, S., Hussar, W., Kena, G., Bianco, K., Frohlich, L., Kemp, J. & Tahan, K. (2011). The condition of education 2011 (NCES 2011-033). Washington, DC: US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, US Government Printing Office. Blue, D. & Cook, J. E. (2004). High school dropouts: Can we reverse the stagnation in school graduation? Study of High School Restructuring, 1(2). Retrieved 14 March 2013 from http://www.edb.utexas.edu/hsns/HSNSbrief2.pdf White, S. W. & Kelly, F. D. (2010). The school counselor’s role in school dropout prevention. Journal of Counseling & Development, 88, 227 – 235. Read More