RASTA: Local Research, Local Solutions: Education & Technology, Volume Xv
ABSTRACT
A substantially low school completion rate is a major impediment in attaining Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) of inclusive and equitable education for all. Therefore, education policy must introduce targeted instruments for improvement in terms of school completion rate and successful transition to a higher level of education. The study covered Punjab and Sindh and focused on examining the factors associated with school dropouts in Pakistan. The first part of the study is based on micro-level analysis by employing the Cox proportional hazard model to predict the risk of dropping out of school. The study developed a framework of analysis by focusing on two aspects, i.e., the conducive environment at the household level representing the demand-side factors and the enabling environment at the community level reflecting the supply-side factors. The demand-side factors included economic barriers, societal barriers, and personal disabilities. The supply-side factors included schooling attributes, early childhood readiness and beyond-primary readiness. The association of these factors with the risk of early dropout from school was examined after controlling for regional differences, gender, and poverty. The second part of this study undertook a comparative descriptive analysis across different divisions of Punjab and Sindh. The study indicates that the contributing factors for early-stage school dropout were child labour and poverty. The relative parity risks were also found to be greater in those regions that have a higher incidence of poverty. The cognitive and functional difficulties were also found to be causing hindrances in a successful transition to a higher level of schooling. The teaching quality was captured by including input and output measures. The input measures included regularity in homework, teacher’s feedback, presence of a school governing body and active PTA/SMC, and the output indicator was measured as district-level learning scores. All these factors were found to have a significant association in reducing school dropout. The role of early childhood readiness (ECE) was also examined, which had a significant impact in reducing school dropouts except in the case of Punjab the hazard ratio for the current year’s ECE was higher due to large dropouts at the Katchi/pre-school level. The study also observed that better school infrastructure, school governing bodies, parent-teacher associations, improved school learning, education performance, readiness toward higher-level schooling as well as higher-level school availability considerably reduce the risk of school dropouts. The study recommends that education policy must be structured according to regional and local contexts keeping in view the needs and requirements of that region and locale.
INTRODUCTION
The underlying principle of Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) is universal and equitable access to education with an active role of the state in service provision and regulatory standards. SDG 4 targets free publicly funded education up to grade 12 and an effective learning environment for skill development and increased literacy. However, the school dropout ratio tends to persist in Pakistan, which is a major hindrance to the full realisation of SDG 4. After the 18th Amendment, provinces have been granted legislative and financial autonomy in many social sectors including health and education. According to Article 25A, the State is obligated to provide free and compulsory education to all (children between the ages of 5 and 16 years). The Article states: “The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years in such a manner as may be determined by law.”
The school-level education is fully devolved to the provinces but still, the performance is not satisfactory to meet the SDG 4 targets. The percentage of out-of-school children has remained stagnant during the last decade and there has not been much improvement in student retention at primary and secondary levels. Many studies use school enrolment as a core indicator to analyse education performance in terms of education access. However, the school dropout rate is an important issue in our education system which needs to be tackled by overcoming the causal factors associated with it. The education performance as net attendance and completion rate is provided in Figure 1.
