This activity should take you about 25 – 30 minutes to complete
If you are from one of the nine Pacific Island countries, read about the status of education in your country in the resource: Out-of-School Children: A Contemporary View from the Pacific Island Countries of the Commonwealth. The resource is accessible on the following link: https://oasis.col.org/items/c95e2029-b542-4a3f-8a9b-852049190e66 . If you are not from one of the nine Pacific countries, you can choose any of the Pacific countries covered in the resource and read about it or search for some data linked to your own country
After reading through your country section, answer the following questions to help draw your attention to pertinent aspects of education access in your country. You don’t have to read the whole resource; you just need to focus on one country. The contents table on page (v) helps you identify the relevant pages.
What is the trend in terms of number of children out of school from year to year in the country you read about?
What is the trend of out of -primary -school children by gender?
List three main causes of school drop-out in your country.
Post in the discussion forum measures your government is taking to get out–of-school children and youth to participate in education.
Trend in Terms of Number of Children Out of School from Year to Year in Kenya
The trend of the number of out-of-school children in Kenya has generally been decreasing over the years due to increased government and international efforts to improve education access. However, fluctuations may occur due to economic, social, and political factors. For instance, significant strides have been made since the introduction of Free Primary Education (FPE) in 2003.
Trend of Out-of-Primary-School Children by Gender
In Kenya, the trend has shown a slight bias with more boys attending school compared to girls. However, efforts to bridge the gender gap have been underway, focusing on girl child education to ensure equal opportunities. The gap has been narrowing, but challenges such as cultural practices and socio-economic factors still pose barriers.
Three Main Causes of School Drop-Out in Kenya
Poverty: Many families cannot afford the indirect costs of education such as uniforms, books, and transportation, leading to high dropout rates.
Child Labor: Economic hardship forces children to leave school and work to support their families.
Early Marriage and Pregnancy: Cultural practices and lack of sex education contribute to high rates of early marriage and pregnancy among girls, causing them to drop out of school.
Government Measures to Get Out-of-School Children and Youth to Participate in Education
To address the issue of out-of-school children and youth, the Kenyan government has implemented several measures:
Free Primary Education (FPE): Introduced in 2003, this program abolished school fees for primary education, significantly increasing enrollment rates.
School Feeding Programs: Providing meals in schools to improve attendance and retention, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions.
Conditional Cash Transfers: Financial assistance to vulnerable families on the condition that their children attend school regularly.
Education Policies and Campaigns: Advocacy and policy measures to combat child labor and early marriage, promoting the importance of education for all children.
Infrastructure Development: Building and improving schools, especially in rural and marginalized areas, to make education more accessible.
These efforts aim to reduce the number of out-of-school children and enhance educational opportunities for all, especially the marginalized and vulnerable populations.
School is compulsory here in Tuvalu until the age of 16, school dropouts will choose otherwise to take technical pathways. The trend is less than 5% are actually choose to stay from school until the age of 20, where most choose to engage on other activities. The trend is less than 1% are out of Primary school for reasons of physical disorientations, and are almost equally the same male/female. Main causes of school dropouts are isolation, and physical disorientations. Primary school is mandatory and every one is access to it free of charge from Pre school too. Secondary school too is free of charge too up to age 16, and then we see pathways for them. Other reforms such as technical schools, are also established to facilitate those that choose otherwise from academic streams.
The trend in terms of number of children out of school from the country I chose which is Kiribati the number is compromising where from beginners or primary school was 95% but getting low in junior secondary school to SSS. As illustrated in the diagrams in the reading provided from the Kiribati National Statistics.It a challenge to the Ministry of Education to engage young children to finish their studies instead of dropping out from school.
What is the trend of out of primary school children by gender? Well the trend in out of primary school according to my country in Kiribati boys are the more high in number dropping out from primary school for various reasons such as embarrassment of poor grades, family issues (living with a single mother or father), Financial hardship and so much more.
Three main causes of school drop out in my country are as follows;
Girls becoming mothers in their teen age.
Boys drop out due to family issues (Broken Family)
It is interesting that boys drop out of school more than girls. Has there been systemic study or analysis of the problem to unearth the real causes and are there any measures that are being taken to alleviate the problem?
Just to highlight that this seems to be a common trend internationally even in higher education where there is greater participation of female than male students in higher education. We need to address the problem.
Interesting response to the activity - more boys participating in school than girls in Kenya. Cause for dropout also well identified. I wonder whether there are causes which are curriculum- related, like relevance, flexibility and resourcing of learning?
From my view young poeple especially boys in my country starting from junior secondary school tends to ignore their studies due to technology (playing games). Somehow the Ministry who worked hard to engage young children to a free Education but no change. The main cause of drop out from school could not possible to blame Teachers,Government or whoever deals with these children,why? Beacause parents are the main grassroot to engage their children to school. If your parent spoil you by spooning your mouth with whatever you want, the mentality of that child will always think that everything is easy to get although they forget that their parent are not suppose to feed them till the end of their lifetime.
Teachers and the Government in my Country do their part really well but it depends to young people to choose their way forward to success, whether leaving school or try their best to the finishing line.
Here in Zambia,at lower grades there are no significant differences in drop- out rates. Drop outs likely to generally decrease due to the introduction of free education by the government. Rural children are most likely to be out of school.
Drop out gap widens as pupils progress to higher grades and girls may drop out more.
Causes of school drop out may include, long distances to school,pupils having to work in order to have money for food and other necessities,and early pregnancy among girls.
Government has introduced free education at primary and secondary level ,and it partners with other organisations to provide education.
Trend: Data on year-to-year trends is limited, and reports show mixed results.
Gender disparity: Though historically girls faced more challenges, recent studies suggest the dropout rate for boys at secondary school level might be rising faster than for girls [1, 2].
Causes of dropping out: Poverty, lack of access to quality education, and child labor are major reasons.
Expanding access to free and compulsory education:** Is this initiative reaching the most vulnerable populations, particularly in rural areas?
Financial assistance for poor families:** Are these programs sufficient to cover the costs associated with education?
Improving the quality of education:** Are schools providing engaging and relevant curriculum to keep children motivated?
1.The trend of the number of out of school children in Solomon Islands has been increasing from year to year. That is in year 2017 the total rate is 6.6% and in 2018 the rate is 8.0%. So here the out-of-school rate for primary education increased by 1.4 percentage points between 2017 and 2018.
2.The trend out of school primary children by gender shows that in 2014 around 18 percent were males and 21 percent were females. This shows that a good number of primary age children were girls compared to boys. Due to peer pressure, sports activities, and getting hooked up to other social related activities that hinders their interest to education. So is not so much learning rescources that will influence their interest to learning.
The reasons that cause school drop outs in my country is:
_ Parents not having full support to children’s education.
-Students not interested in their education, due to peers, contact drugs, teenage pregancy etc.
_Teacher absenteeism in schools.
In Solomon Islands the measures the government through the Ministry of Education has taken to get out of school children and youth to contribute in education is:
-The government has removed the year 6 secondary entrance examination and introduced years 7, 8 and 9 in identified primary schools.
-The Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development under the strategic framework has made way to boost education in Solomon Islands through developing training improvement for both primary and secondary teachers. That is for teachers to acquire more knowledge on how to deal with students and providing quality education for all.
Fee free education was introduced in 2009 and was implemented for basic education for Primary and Secondary level. This is to increase the the accessibility to quality education in Solomon Islands.
Well done to those of you who have posted your observations and views regarding school dropouts. It is worrying to see that in some countries, early pregnancies are one of the main causes of school dropout. I wonder whether there are any policies that are put in place to specifically target the problem of early pregnancy. Another common problem raised is long distance learners walk to school. This problem is particularly prevalent in rural areas, especially in sparsely populated areas. Would you like to suggest a possible solution o this problem? How does your government address this problem?
Distance education can be targeted at those in informal employment, school drop outs and those in formal employment. Challenges can come from inability to read and write,lack of access to technology devices like phones and laptops, lack of access to internet connectivity and study materials.
What is the trend in terms of number of children out of school from year to year in the country you read about?
Solomon Islands is a country with diverse of culture with 922 Islands that located in the Southwest of Pacific Ocean. My country has six major Islands and they speak 70 different languages in their Islands. This shows that Solomon Islands have the highest population in the Pacific Countries.
Therefore, the numbers of children out of school will likely also increasing every year. So however, in 2005 is the highest value of Percentage of children that out of school which 24.58% and then it begun to decrease in 2006 to 2015 (19.57% to 0.07%) and then in 2018 to 2019 the rate started to increase to 4.38% to 6.65% of children are out of school enrolment in Solomon Islands. This development shows that Solomon Island is a third world country so the number of children out of school from year to year will likely to increase.
What is the trend of out-of-primary-school children by gender?
According to the readings and finding, Solomon Islands have issues that facing the education system that there are numbers of children are not enroll in primary school. For instance, in 2014 about 18 per cent of males and 21 per cent of females were not enrolled in primary school. These shows that female are like not attending formal education than male. However, nowadays in Solomon Islands, male are out numbers by girls to enroll in formal education.
3. List three main causes of school drop-out in your country.
• Family Issues- this include financial support for education from parents
• Teenage pregnancy- influence by peers
• School Allocation which children give up to travel to enroll in schools
Post in the discussion forum measures your government is taking to get out–of-school children and youth to participate in education
In my country Solomon Islands, there few measure that government trying to get out of school children in education.
• Solomon Islands Government has removed the year six (6) secondary entrance examination. This is to do away early drop out from education
• Government introducing fee Free Education in year 2009 which has been implemented for basic education. This will increase the access to quality education for all children in the Solomon Islands
• Government provides policies and programs to improve the state of education by investing in capacity for teachers, improving literacy skills, and reducing gender inequality in education. Therefore government has strongly committed to provide equitable education access for children to complete their education.
From the reading the trend in terms of Primary school number of children out of school from year to year in Vanuatu has been on a significant decline, this is due in part to the effectiveness of the school grant schemes introduced in 2010.
The trend of out of school children by gender shows that a higher proportion of boys than girls are not attending.
Data also reveals that the proportion of students not attending schools is higher in rural areas than urban areas.
The main causes of school drop-out are very much similar to those already mentioned in previous posts are:
Financial burden
Access to school due to poor infrastructure, disability related factors
Teenage pregnancies
And if I may add one more there is also the lack of teacher preparedness.
The measures the government is taking to get out of school children and youth to participate in education is:
Curriculum reform
Increase in teacher training and professional development
Fee – free grant schemes for primary education and the provision of skill centers and rural Training Colleges
Sue, it is good to notice that the number of children out of school is declining in Vanuatu, thanks to the government school grant scheme.
The issue of more boys not attending school than girls needs to be looked into more closely to come up with a solution. Perhaps boys are engaging more in economic activities to sustain their families at early ages more than girls. If that is the case, a different form of schooling, like open schooling, might be useful for such a target group. Do you mind sharing how well open schooling is functioning in Vanuatu?
Interesting trend in terms of children not attending school in Solomon Islands. Do you know why there was a sudden increase in the number of out of school children in 2018 and 2019? Constance, do you have open schooling in the Solomon Islands and if you do, how well is it functioning?
Well done to all of you who have posted your responses to the learning activities in this forum. It is clear from most of the posts that major causes for non-participation in school by school-age children are largely economic and cultural. It is also encouraging to note that some governments have come up with sound policies to try and address this problem. Measures such as free primary education, school feeding programs, conditional Cash transfers and improving the quality of schooling help alleviate the problem of out-of school children. It usually takes great effort to get the last 5% of out of school learners in a country to participate in school, especially traditional forms of schooling. Thinking of alternative approaches to schooling, like open schooling will go a long way in mainstreaming learners in education.
In Fiji, the trend of number of children out of school is galloping between 2013 to 2016 ranging 844,000; 900,000 and 576,000 respectively.
The trend of out of primary school children in Fiji between 2013 to 2015 by gender shows that male declined from 811000 to 302000 but in contrast female increased from 33,000 to 398,000.
3.Three main causes of school drop out in Fiji include: (i) Costs of sending children to school by parents; (ii) Family pressures and obligations; and (iii) Lack of parental commitments.
Fiji government have taken the following measures to get out-of-school children and youth to participate in education: (a) Implementation of School Zoning Policy; (b) Mainstreaming of vocational courses in small secondary schools; (c) Use of funding from donor agencies in improving school infrastructure; (d) Free education for both primary and secondary schools; (e) Provision of Telecentres in schools to minimize digital divide.