Prueba de hipótesis

A second category of children manifesting pattern one attendance spends a whole academic year or more out of school. These children are listed in official school documents as dropouts. It appears that such children are not interested in schooling because they have dropped out permanently. In terms of characteristics, it seems that older children in particular find it difficult to return to school, and consequently become permanent dropouts. According to one teacher; “Children who are more than three years older than their grade

average are often unable to complete school once they dropout... Sometimes, some of them come back but they dropout again.”

Commenting on the relationship between overage children and dropout, one head teacher noted, “When older children terminate schooling, they often never return to school...even when they do, they dropout again.”

Three typical cases that illustrate the relation between overage and permanent dropout – both unsettled and settled – are Ntiful, a 17 year-old boy; Ofori, a 17 year-old boy; and, Oparebea, a 14 year-old girl; who stopped attending school in Basic 5, 6 and 4 respectively. The stories behind their attendance and dropout are related in boxes 4, 5 and 6 below.

Unsettled Dropout: The Case of Ntiful

Ntiful started school in the village and attended irregularly until the latter stages of Basic 3. He became more irregular in his attendance when he reached Basic 4. He often earned an income as a farm labourer whenever he was not in school. He repeated Basic 4 twice because at certain times, he stayed away

from school for a whole month before returning for a week or two and then disappearing again. He dropped out of Basic 5 after repeating it.

Figure 6:5 Ntsiful’s Attendance Prior to Becoming Unsettled Dropout

Source: field data from school records

Ntiful was not interested in finishing school because being 17 years old and still in Basic 5, he considered himself to too old and felt embarrassed when learning in the same class as younger children. His story is related in box 4.

Box 4: Ntiful’s Narrative

I don’t have anybody to support me at school. My parents are poor so I have to support myself. I know whenever I don’t go back to school, my classmates will be learning ahead of me. But I can’t go to school without food, books or a pen either. Therefore, I go to work for people so I can raise some money to use to take care of myself.

When you don’t go to school regularly, the teachers repeat you. That is what I have been going through all this time. But now I’m getting old and all these children at school are so young, and I feel bad when I am learning with them. Any time you make a mistake, all the Basic laughs at you. When the teacher canes you, you feel very bad because younger children are there and laughing at you. I’m not really interested in going to school again; I don’t want to go back but I am not sure what type of work to do.

Settled Dropout: The Case of Ofori

Ofori’s exclusion from schooling began with low attendance in his third term of Basic 4, during which he attended school for 30 days. His first episode of prolonged absence from school occurred in the third term of Basic 5, when he did not attend at all for the whole of third term, demonstrating a case of sporadic dropout. He later dropped back in the following academic year to repeat Basic 5. He then stayed in school for the first two terms, attend irregularly and dropped out again in the third term. Obviously, his classmates graduated ahead of him.

Figure 6:6 Ofori’s Attendance Prior to Becoming Settled Dropout

Source: field data from school records

Ofori told me that he was not interested in going to school again, as he was earning a living from fishing. His narrative is related in box 5.

Box 5: Ofori’s Narrative

Settled Dropout: The Case of Oparebea

Oparebea was another dropout case that typifies school attendance pattern one. Oparebea went to school regularly until the second term of Basic 4 when her attendance began to drop. In the third term of Basic 4, she dropped out of school. She returned to school the following academic year to repeat Basic 4 but in the course of doing so, she dropped out again during the second term after attending school for only five days.

When I got to Basic four, there was nobody to take care of me; my parents travelled, leaving me behind. So, during the harvest season, I started hustling at the beach to make money. Later, in the long vacation, I travelled to Half Assini to hustle there too. I was supposed to enter Basic six but I did not return from Half Assini early enough. I missed most of the days, so I was punished for not reporting to school early.

But you see, before the long vacation, there was no teacher in our Basic so I felt it was better to hustle at the beach for money than waste my time in school. In the third term, I did not go to school at all because this time, I travelled early to Half Assini to work. When I went to school the following term, I had to repeat because I had not written the third term examinations. The problem is that when you stop school for some time and you go back, the teachers ignore you when they are teaching. They only ask children who are answering their questions whether they understand. Whenever you complain that you don’t understand, they tell you it is because you stopped attending school. You see, the main problem was that nobody at school knew I was taking care of myself. Sometimes the teachers thought I was not serious...but during sports and athletics lessons, they often called me to go and help. I really like sports but now I am too old to be in school... Most of the children there are too young and I can’t learn with them. If you are older in a Basic of younger children, they often tease you when you give wrong answers... It is also very embarrassing when teachers cane you in front of these younger children.

Now, I have made a decision not to go to school. I am making enough money fishing. In the future, I will buy a canoe.

Figure 6:7 Oparebea’s Attendance Trend Prior to Becoming Unsettled Dropout

Source: field data from school records

She told me that she might not go to school again because she did not understand what was being taught. At the time of the study, she now was selling rice in the village. Her narrative is related in Box 6.

Box 6: Oparebea’s Narrative

From the accounts of these three cases of permanent dropout, it is clear that when children do not find the school environment to be supportive, they will invariably drop out. The two boys, Ofori and Ntiful, similar to most other dropout cases attended school irregularly because they combined work with schooling (see 7.2.3). Eventually, they dropped out when they could not continue to combine the two occupations. It appears that such children may make an effort to remain in school, but conditions such as the unavailability of teachers in the

I have been going to school all these years but I don’t know anything. I walk six kilometres to school every day but I don’t get anything at school from what is taught. I am not able to learn anything teachers are teaching in the school. They don’t teach what I want to learn. For example, I want to learn how to make cloth and I am good at sports but in Basic, the teacher always insists we write but I am not good at writing, so now I have decided not to go to school again. I thought I would be able to finish school and become someone important one day, but now I know I am not going to be one of those. But it is not bad; I am doing well with my business.

case of Ofori, and an unsupportive teacher attitude towards children at risk as in the case of Oparebea, result in dropout (see 7.4.1).

The cases of Ofori, who would rather earn a living; Ntiful, who was not interested in returning to school; and Oparebea, who felt that she was wasting her time at school, all reveal a loss of interest in schooling. The figures on patterns of school attendance in table 5.2 show that there were several other dropout children in the study area whose cases were similar. They all had their own stories to tell, but their situations may not have differed so very much from those of the three children discussed above.

In summary, children who manifest attendance patterns one and two can be respectively identified as temporary and permanent school dropouts. These children may be identified from two observable particularities of their profile. The first is the child’s enrolment status before dropping out, the timing of dropout; and the second is the circumstances that led to dropout.

In respect of the timing of dropout, children who manifest attendance pattern one include those who graduated from the previous grade but did not attend their new class, as well as grade repeaters. Two categories of those repeating a grade are evident: children who were required to repeat but did not go to school the following term, and others who began the repeated grade but afterwards stopped attending.

In terms of the circumstances that led to dropout, children for whom the value of schooling appears to have diminished stopped going to school, a situation that manifests as pattern one attendance. Children who faced temporary economic needs, as well as those with challenges related to behaviour such as discipline at school, manifest pattern two attendance.

In cases of both temporary and permanent dropout, all the children concerned were overage in grade before dropping out of school. The evidence from children’s accounts of the types of dropout and the stories behind them indicate

that dropping out of school has been a gradual process. The next section focuses on the processes that lead to dropout employing three case studies.