Causes Of Students’ Dropout At Lower Secondary Level In .
2021 Scienceweb PublishingJournal of Educational Research and ReviewsVol. 9(1), pp. 13-20, January 2021doi: 10.33495/jerr v9i1.20.191ISSN: 2384-7301Research PaperCauses of students’ dropout at lower secondary level inRural Cambodia: Parental InsightsSongleng ChhaingDepartment of Community Development at Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia.*Corresponding author. E-mail: songleng 001@yahoo.com. Telephone Number 855 17686363Accepted 12th October, 2020.Abstract. This qualitative study explored the effects of home environment and academic attitudes of lower-secondarystudents in rural Cambodia on their decisions to leave school from the perspectives of their parents. The data from semistructured interviews of 32 parents from 32 different households and field notes revealed that numerous undesirablebehaviors combined with low cognitive development and home environment, which was greatly determined by familysocio-economic resources, were among the primary reasons for which lower secondary school students decided to dropout. The empirical evidence from this study has yielded some policy implications for relevant stakeholders workingtowards achieving equity and quality of education at lower-secondary school level in Cambodia.Keywords: dropout, parents, attitudes, home environment, Cambodia.INTRODUCTIONHigh rate of school dropout remains a major challenge forachieving Education for All (EFA) in Cambodia, especiallyin rural and remote areas, where a significant number ofschool children continued to drop out. Despite numerouspolicy interventions taken by the Royal Government ofCambodia to tackle this high rate of dropouts, theprevalence of dropout cases at lower secondary levelremains stagnant. Secondary school dropout rate hadslightly declined for many years; however, this rate hasstarted to increase gradually for the past few years,especially in lower secondary school (year 7 to year 9)and upper secondary school (year 10 to year 12).Secondary school dropout rate was 19.60 % in lowersecondary school and 11.80% in upper secondary schoolin 2011 (Ministry of Education Youth and Sport, MoEYS,2012). This rate has slightly increased to 21.2% and 14%in lower and upper secondary school, respectively(MoEYS, 2014). More importantly, high school dropout isoftentimes seen to concentrate in rural areas inCambodia (World Bank, 2005). The succinct figures fromthese reveal that the actual rate of secondary schooldropouts in rural Cambodia could be much higher thanthe aforementioned national dropout rate.Disproportion or disparity of education between urbanand rural areas may keep widening the gaps between therich and the poor in Cambodian society since therelationship between education attainment and income isstrongly associated in this era of globalization. InCambodia, for example, people with lower secondaryeducation were likely to have more stable income thanthose having solely primary schooling (World Bank,2006). Those having secondary education degree,moreover, can go to college, which in turn can bolstertheir human capital while those who possess nosecondary education degree have no chance to go tocollege. The income gap between those having highereducation and those without higher educationsubstantially widens in this global competitive epoch orknowledge economy since job markets now demand forhighly productive and skilled labors. The rate of return forinvestment in secondary education in Cambodia, forexample, has decreased slightly from 3. 6 percent in1997 to just 2.5 percent per year in 2008 compared to20.7 percent for those having tertiary education
14J. Edu. Res. Rev. / Khounganian et al.(Montenegro and Patrinos, 2015). Foreseeing little returnof investment in education at this level, many parentsmay encourage their children to leave school early.Although the return of investment of education seems tobe significant at tertiary level (Montenegro and Patrinos,2015), the current enrollment rate for tertiary education inCambodia is about 13 % (WB, 2019), most of whom arefrom the two highest quartiles of the income groups. Thismakes parents who could not afford to send their childrento colleges decide to pull their children out of school sincethe return of such an investment is too little compared tothe costs.RESEARCH QUESTIONSWhat are the effects of the academic attitudes in thefamily environment of those who dropped out of lowersecondary school in their decision to discontinueeducation from the perspective of their parents?LITERATURE REVIEWSchool Dropout StudiesDropout phenomenon was a social, cognitive andpsychological and economical process which graduallyevolved over a period of time. Numerous reasons, whichforced students out of schools, have been studied toexpound this phenomenon. Some studies examined thecauses of dropout from cognitivists’ perspectives. Thesestudies tend to look at the relationship between schooldropout and the level of school achievement andmotivation of the students. For instance, a longitudinalstudy on the causes of dropout in lower secondaryschools in the Netherlands revealed that low academicperformance and cognitive abilities combined with lowmotivation and negative school perception significantlyincreased the likelihoods of dropout (Traag and Velden,2011). School performance and motivational model,which includes perceived competence and selfdetermined motivation, accounted for 27% and 17 % ofvariance in the odds of high school dropout, respectively(Hardre, and Reeve, 2003). Furthermore, students’ selfdetermined motivation was a significant predictor of thestudent’ intensions to leave school one year before(Alivernini, & Lucidi, 2011). Students’ decision to drop outof high school could also be derived from a lack ofmotivation and social support from inside and outsideschool (Drewry et al., 2010). Thus, academic achievement,motivation, cognitive ability and social support from insideand outside school significantly forecasted students’intention to drop out. However, there are many other factorsthat contribute to this phenomenon.Other studies tried to grapple with the causes of schooldropout from behavioral perspectives. These studiesexamined the relationship between dropout phenomenonand the behaviors and experiences that studentsexhibited either inside or outside school in addition toacademic outcomes and motivation. A longitudinal studyon dropout conducted in Canada, for example, found thatschool disengagement, in the short run, could predict theodds of dropout better than motivation (Archambault etal., 2009). This study, however, showed that, in the shortrun, emotional and cognitive engagement in academicwork had no spillover effect on the likelihoods of dropout.In spite this, the study concluded that a decline inmotivation, school interests and willingness to iors, the consequence of which would havesubstantial effects on the decision to leave gement, both of which were a significant predictorof school dropout, had been found to stem frommisbehaviors, including delinquency, absenteeism andtruancy (Battin-Pearson et al., 2000; Finn, 1989). Thus,although cognitive and emotional engagement in school,which tend to have a substantial effect on students’behaviors, in the short run, showed no effect on theintention to give up schooling; however, in the long run,the effect increasingly emerged.In addition, some studies examined the relationshipbetween genders and school dropouts. For instance, thestudy of school dropout in the Netherlands by Traag andVelden, (2011) pointed out that boys are almost twice aslikely as girls to leave secondary school. However, aresearch review on dropout in the last 25 years byRumberger and Lim (2008) found a mixed result of therelationship between genders and dropouts, leaving theissue of gender-dropout relationships on this issueremain inconclusive.Apart from students’ achievement, motivation,behaviors and genders, other studies examined therelationship between school dropouts and family socioeconomic backgrounds, particularly in developingcountries. Most of these studies found that familyresources and structures significantly predicted childreneducation outcomes. The study of Traag and Velden(2011) revealed that children from a family with limitedfinancial resources had higher risk of dropout than theiraffluent counterparts. For a one-year increase in parentaleducation, for example, the study found a 7 % percentdecrease in the risk of dropout and a 50 % decrease ifenough parental support was given (Traag and Velden,2011). In addition, children from a single-parent familyhad greater risk of discontinuing schooling than thoseliving with both parents (Rumberger and Lim, 2008;Traag and Velden, 2011).School Dropout in CambodiaIn Cambodia, very few studies have been conducted tofind out the reasons why students decided to leave school
J. Edu. Res. Rev. / Khounganian et al.before graduation. The study of Keng (2003), whichcompared non-dropout primary school girls and dropoutprimary school girls, found that the major reasons thatforced primary school girls to give up schooling were highabsenteeism, late school entry, grade repetition, pooracademic motivation, low parental education and lowaspiration for formal employment. However, her studyfound no relationship between family resources as wellas family child labor such as household chores and thelikelihoods for girls to drop out of primary school. Thismay reflect the fact that direct and indirect costs ofeducation at primary school level were still so minimalthat they displayed no effect on the odds of dropout atprimary education. Although most school children living inrural areas are involved in child labor in order to sharethe portion of the family incomes, primary school girlsmay not contribute much, given that their age remains tooyoung, so the opportunity costs or child labor may not berobust enough to prevent primary school girls fromattending primary school. However, both direct andindirect costs of education increased exponentially inboth lower and upper secondary school (World Bank,2005).In their longitudinal study, No and Hirakawa (2012),conducted a study on non-dropout students in bothprimary and secondary school and followed them forthree consecutive years to see who dropped out. Thisstudy also found that late entry, overage, graderepetition, parental education and academic results werethe primary reasons to push the students off school. Theregression analysis from this study, for example, showedthat a student who enrolled in school one year late had 1.43 times higher dropout rate than those who beganschool on time. This finding, furthermore, indicated thatschool factors were strongly related to school dropout atsecondary school level while at primary level, schoolfactors did not show any effects on the phenomenon.Surprisingly, the statistics from the study showed norelationship between the odds of dropout at secondaryschool level and family resources and child engagementin wage employment. However, according to World Bank(2005), the relationship between economic situations anddropout likelihoods in Cambodia remained significant. Ina large-scale study on the reasons why children inCambodia discontinued schooling using data fromcommune household survey and data from World FoodProgram, World Bank (2005) found that poverty,stunning, engaging in domestic work and wageemployment were the major barriers for secondary schoolstudents to remain in school until graduation.In addition to the impact of family socio-economicsituations on both children physical health and chancesto attend school on a regular basis, high direct costs ofreceiving free public education has widened aconsiderable number of school children out of school.Public secondary school in Cambodia is typically runalongside the private tutoring. This private tutoring is15generally not offered to provide supplementaryscaffolding for the academically poor performingstudents, but exclusively to those who could financiallyafford it. To make the situation worse, a numerousnumber of public-school teachers, who offered thisprivate tutoring, according to Dawson (2010), tried topromote the demand of their private tutoring classes byexcluding some important lessons from the officialcurriculum, leaving those who missed the private tutoringsuffered academically and emotionally. Brehm and Silova(2014) also found that the average test scores of theprivate tutoring attendees and non-attendees constituted11 percent point difference. The private tutoringattendees, for instance, scored at least 6 points out of 10or higher while the score of non-attendees hardlyexceeded 5 points out 10 (Brehm and Silova, 2014). Thishas helped expound the fact that academic achievementof the students in Cambodia was significantly determinedby family financial resources to afford the cost of privatetutoring.In conclusion, literatures on dropouts to date haveprovided some greater insights into the causes of thisphenomenon. However, there remains to be someliterature gaps in the study of dropout since most of thestudy tend to look into this issue from measuring thevariables relating to the dropouts. However, differentinterpretations may emerge from this phenomenon if thisissue is observed from the parents’ standpoints. Parentsplay significant role in determining whether their childrenwill stay in school until graduation as most of the financialresources, social and emotional supports andinstrumental motivation, all of which are the greaterdeterminant of the school success, rely predominantly onparents. Finally, looking into dropout phenomenon solelyfrom the perspectives of the dropouts may not revealtheir genuine behaviors and attitudes as the dropoutsmay escape the blames and attribute their educationfailure to others such as school factors or teachers.RESEARCH METHODOLOGYSemi-structured interview method was used to interview32 parents (22 mothers and 10 fathers) from 32 differenthouseholds of 15 dropout girls and 17 dropout boys intwo villages in the same commune in a southern provinceof Cambodia in November 2019 to find out theirperceptions on the reasons why their children decided todrop out of lower-secondary school. These interview datawere complemented with the data from the field notes.Purposive sampling method was used to recruit theparticipants since this method allows the researcher toselect a sample in a systematic and purposive way,depending on our knowledge about our target populationand the purpose of our study (Tranter, 2010). Thirty-fivedropouts from two villages in the same commune wereidentified through a field visit to both villages, during which
16J. Edu. Res. Rev. / Khounganian et al.their parents were contacted and requested forparticipation in the interviews. However, only 32 parentsof the dropouts were interviewed as the other threeparents were busy on the interview days and could notspare their time for the interviews. Four criteria had beenused to select and recruit the participants for the study.All the participants were the biological parents of thedropouts, and they had lived with their children until theirchildren left school. Their children were between 13 and16 years old and their children had dropped out of school.Their children had not enrolled in any other vocationaltraining programs. Semi-structured interview was thenused to generate the primary data for the study, realizingthis kind of data collection method allows the researchersto ask supplementary questions, which are relevant tointerviewees’ responses in order to achieve moreelaborate and in-depth data for the study (Basit, 2010).With the prior consent from the interviewees, allinterviews were recorded and transcribed. Theseinterview data were then analyzed through a thematicanalysis method, as this method allows the researcher toidentify themes emerging from within data forinterpretation (Willis, 2010). The data about the parents’perceptions on academic attitudes and behaviors of theirchildren and their decisions to discontinue schooling werethen organized into different categories. The relationshipsbetween these categories were explored in order todevelop themes for interpretations and discussions.RESULTStimes informing about his poor progress in his study anddisengagement in class. The teacher also advised hisparents to help him with his study at home. After school,Bunthorn would help look after cattle in the family andsometimes he helped carry the monk’s bowl when themonk had to beg food from home to home and hesometimes missed the school because of this. Bunthorn’smother described him as an apathetic learner who neverorganized his books or read any books. A part from studyand looking after cattle, Bunthorn went out with friends.Dropout Story #2. Sreang is a 15-year old dropout girl.She gave up school at grade 7 to work as a householdservant in Phnom Penh. She is the third daughter among6 siblings in her family. Her oldest sister got married andworked with her husband in Thailand and her olderbrother also got married and worked as security guard inPhnom Penh. Her other two younger brothers remain inprimary school and her other younger sister is insecondary school. Sreang’s father is a constructionworker and her mother is a house wife and casual laborerin the village. Sreang’s father is a drunken man whousually worked to pay his drink and with small portion tosupport the family. Sreang’s mother described Sreang asan average student who would go to school most of thetimes. After school, Sreang would help household choresand looked after cattle for other families in the village forsome money. With this money, Sreang occasionallyattended private tutoring classes. Foreseeing thehopelessness about further study due to limited familyresources, Sreang decided to leave school and got a jobas a household servant in Phnom Penh.Dropout Stories32 parents from different 32 households were interviewedduring November 2019. However, only two stories ofdropout families were narrated as these two storiesprovided rich and in-depth depictions of the normalcharacteristics of the dropout situations in this study.Pseudonyms were given to these narratives. Thepseudonyms presented in this finding include, Bunthorn,Buntha, Pitou, Sothun, Ponlok, Thol, Lim (dropout boys),Sreang, Ratha, Pisey and Sopheap (dropout girls).Dropout Story#1. Bunthorn is 15 and the youngest in thefamily of five children. His mother is a housewife and hisfather is a laborer in the village as the family does nothave any agricultural land for cultivation. Bunthorn’smother got 6 years of education while his father got 5years of formal schooling. All of his brothers and sistershad dropped out of school and got married. Bunthorn justleft school six months ago when he was in grade 8. Thereason for which he decided to leave school was his poorexam results and his laziness. He failed his monthlyexams every month, yet he was passed to the nextgrade. He was frequently absent from school. One of theteachers for his class used to contact his mother a fewReasons for DropoutsThree major themes emerged from the open and axialcoding of the data from the field notes and the semistructured interviews with the parents about theirchildren’s academic attitudes and behaviors at home andwhy their children decided to discontinue schooling. Thetheme that appeared across most of the interviews wasthe negative academic attitudes of their childrenexhibiting at home, which resulted in poor academicoutcomes and lower self-esteem about schooling, theconsequence of which forced them out of school.Second, family resources combined with wage or nonwage employment presented a major obstacle for thechildren to remain in school until graduation. Finally, lackof social supports from family, school violence andnegative peer culture were also among other factorsexpelling some studen
especially in lower secondary school (year 7 to year 9) and upper secondary school (year 10 to year 12). Secondary school dropout rate was 19.60 % in lower secondary school and 11.80% in upper secondary school in 2011 (Ministry of Education Youth and Sport, MoEYS,
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