The context of school level in this study refers to the level of education such as primary, secondary or junior high and high schools or even colleges. From the literature, different countries have different terms for classes or levels. For examples,
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in USA and other western nations they call it grade(s) while in Samoa and other Pacific nations they call it year level(s).
A study by Yi, et.al (2011) shows that dropout rates grow with grades and ages. That is the higher the grade or the older the student is the higher the dropout rate. What they have found is that about 6% dropped out of school between grade 7 and grade 8 while 9% left school prematurely between grade 8 and grade 9. They have also indicated that about 14% dropped out as early as before the end of grade 9 which is about 6 times higher than the officially recognised 3-year total junior high school dropout rate of about 3%. This is also proven by Chapman, Laird, Ifill & KewalRamani (2011) whereby the event dropout rate is much higher (19.1%) for those aged 20 to 24 years old, compared to 2.8% and 2.5% for those aged 15 to 16 and 17 years old respectively. Similar trend was also found in the status dropout rate. The same pattern is also presented in Christenson & Thurlow (2004) and McNeal (1995) for high schools situation in America. They have reported that the rate for an American high school to leave school early is unbelievably 1 in every 9 seconds, in contrast to 1 in 8 students never gradute from high school. The number of students who drop out of high school without graduating could increase to at least a million every year (Tyler & Lofstrom, 2009). There was one year where the number of these high school students dropping out has reached 37 million (Rumberger, 2001). Lofstrom (2007) believes that the increasing number of high school dropouts and lower graduation rates (Ream & Rumberger, 2008) are attributable to larger proportions of both Hispanic and African-American students than white students in America. Rumberger & Palardy (2005) have identified some of the reasons as mentioned in section 2.3 why the dropout rates are so high in American high schools.
In African countries like Botswana, pregnant school girls contribute to more than 50% of dropouts at secondary schools (Meekers & Ahmed, 1999). They also claim that about 8% of these pregnant school girls dropped out of primary schools and about 20% left secondary schools prematurely due to being pregnant. According to the Ministry of Education, Ethiopia (2010) the dropout rate is as higher as about 23% in grade 1 than in grade 7, especially boys. Another study of the Primary school and dropout in Ethiopia by Admassu (2011) support these findings. He too claims that students are more likely to drop out at grade 1 and grade 8 than any other grade in between. He adds that higher dropout rates for grade 1 is probably due to new school entrants are trying to familiarise and adjust to the school environment. This is also supported by Wils (2004) where she finds out that higher dropout rates are found in the first two grades of primary education in Mozambique. She also indicates that the dropout rates fall in middle grades then rise up again in higher grades. However, Nekatibeb (2002) points out that higher female dropout rates in both of the largest regions in Ethiopia, Amhara and Oromia, are those aged between 14 and 19 years old.
On the other hand, Ilon & Moock (1991) discover that 12% of primary students had never enrolled in schools while 16% were currently out of school in rural Peru. But
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promising figure by ESP (2007) indicates that 10% of primary school students in all the six countries participated including Albania is out of school. They also indentify a considerable unmber of unenrolled students, students who occasionally attend schools and those who quit school before the end of the compulsory education period. But according to UNICEF (2008), attendance and participation rates, enrolment and completion rates for Albanian students are very low but higher dropout rates at secondary school than at primary schools. Similar trend is also applied to Indigenous students in Australia, where most of teenagers aged between 15 and 19 years old give up school before reaching Year 12 (Malin & Meidment, 2003). In the Netherlands, boys are 2 times more likely to leave lower secondary school early than girls (Tanja Traag & RolfK. W. van der Velden, 2011). While in Fiji, almost 17,000 secondary school students aged between 15 and 24 leave school every year (Veramu, 2002) and only a few of them are able to get a job. In addition Vosamana (2012) reports that of those who dropped out of schools almost 50% of them did not complete high school, while 2 % failed to reach class 6. But it was even worse four years ago where only 15% of primary school children completed the full eight years of primary education, and of those who survived about 75% successfully make it to Form 6 and Form 7 (Singh, 2008).
To summarise the school level dropout situation it looks like, despite the variations of dropout patterns in different countries, the dropout rate is much higher in higher level of education. This means that older students in higher grades tend to have very slim chances of surviving high school cycle, due to several factors as mentioned in section 2.3, and finally give up school for good.