Why Students Do Not Finish School - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages 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...
This paper stresses that 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. 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.
Thsi report makes a conlusion that 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. ...Download file to see next pagesRead More