School Dropouts
26 February, 2013KHARTOUM, (SUDANOW)—Ahmed Mohamed Salih, 13, lives in Mayo suburb of South Khartoum. He left school and presently works in polishing shoes, earning 20- Sudanese pounds a day. He has got two brothers, the eldest is 16 and the youngest is 10 years old. He says he will go back to school next year.
Ahmed said he had completed grade three of the primary school and is practicing this job to meet the day-to-day demands of his family due to the declining economic conditions it is experiencing as his father, a farmer in the Blue Nile State, does not earn enough money to cover the family’s daily increasing demands as a result of sky-rocketing prices
Twelve-year-old Mohamed Al-Sheikh is a grade three pupil who lives in Umbaddah neighbourhood, west of Khartoum, says he sells water in the market on Fridays and Saturdays, earning 13-15 Sudanese pounds a day, and goes to school during the remaining days of the week. He said the economic hardships of his family compel him t work during holidays to contribute a little to his family as his father works in a brick factory
A housewife, who prefers to be identified with her H.A. initials, works in a restaurant for preparing meals in a residential quarter. She has got three sons and two daughters and her husband is suffering from paralysis due to a working accident. She says her eldest son studied up to grade seven and is now working as an upholsterer for securing a little cost of living and contributing to education of his brothers and sister. H.A. said she wanted all her children to pursue education to the higher levels.
Those are examples of the children’s exit from the educational system and joining marginal jobs without paying consideration to their future. It is a serious problem facing the educational sector and it affects the family and the entire community, not confined to a limited society. The development and aggravation of this phenomenon lead to tremendous negative results such as increased illiteracy, weakened human capacity, moral deterioration and other social problems.
Ali Khamis, a resident of Omdurman, whose son has left school, says an important factor that makes pupils desert schools lies in the unattractive syllabuses that draw the pupils’ interest. The syllabuses concentrate on the quantity rather than the quality in addition to the shortage of textbooks, harsh punishment, poverty and absence of parents or their separation
He pointed out that schools in the past used to attract pupils by creating an inviting school environment and competitions with other schools in various fields (studies, sports, literary societies). In this respect, Social Expert Dr. Faiz Mohamed Khair says the dropout is of two sorts- a total one in which the pupil completely discontinues leaning, and a partial dropout in which the pupil escapes or frequently absentees from school and eventually returns. Dr. Khair warns that the dropout is a grave phenomenon that must be considered seriously through assessment of the educational situation to cover the teacher, the school and the teaching plan elements which are effective in acceptance or rejection of the school by the pupil. Negligence by the parents and evil companionship may also be a motive for the pupil to leave school. There are, moreover, the economic reasons of poverty and desire in work to earn money. Instructor Aisha Mahmoud of Khartoum State Basic Schools attributes the problem to discouragement by the family to the pupil, lack of follow-up at home and school and negligence of the school duties. The pupil gradually starts absenting himself and coining excuses for not going to school. Besides, there is not close relationship between the pupil and the school or between the pupil and the teacher and therefore there is no mutual trust or mutual understanding between them, creating constant tension and stubbornness on the part of the pupil, especially during adolescence that requires a special treatment of the pupil who at this stage tends to break the school regulations and escape from school or class period. Former secondary school teacher Ibrahim Ali Ishaq says the economic conditions of some families have negative impacts on the students driving them into leaving the school to seek work for assisting their families. Some families are forced to make their children take part in earning a living and thus stop going to school . Ishaq says there must be found radical solutions for eradicating this phenomenon by reactivating the role of the educational guide in the school and stressing to the teachers the importance of fairness and impartiality between students at school. The teacher is also to be advised of assisting the students by addressing their weaknesses, diversifying the teaching methods and encouraging the students to participate in the activities which he prefer. The former secondary school teacher underlines the importance of the teacher’s role he says is indivisible from that of the family in bringing up the student. The teacher must observe the proper implementation of the educational syllabus in the school while the government should try to spread the vocational training centers all over the country’s states or meeting the job market demands in addition to creating a familial atmosphere based n respect and frankness between parents and children, said Ishaq. Ustaz Mohamed Ali al-Dood, Director of the Nomads Education Directorate, said the Directorate aims at rallying the largest possible number of pupils by making encouraging programmes. He said an encouraging policy was laid down in the Red Sea State for attracting the largest possible number through the food-for-education programme. In the Blue Nile State the good-example policy was applied, while the boarding-house experiment was successfully introduced in North Kordofan State and was welcomed by the local community. The war and tribal conflicts constitute a major obstacle for education in Darfur states, he added. Dood called for rehabilitation of the schools which were destroyed by the war, provision of potable water, provision of solar energy for mobile schools and contribution to school health in addition to fighting endemic diseases, such as bilharzia and malaria, particularly in South Darfur and North Kordofan states Dr. Um Salamah Al-Amin, the assistant director of educational statistics section, said the formal education consists of the pre-school, basic, secondary, technical secondary, Islamic studies secondary and special education stages amounting to 6.4 million pupils. The informal education, she said, includes the adolescent education and adults education counting for 468,742 bringing the total up to 6.7 million students, while the teachers of the formal education number 222,764 and the irregular 12,135 teachers. The Minister of Instruction and Education in Khartoum State, Dr. Motasim Abdul Rahim, attributes the dropout to several reasons that include finance, unavailability of the essential elements in schools like drinking water and latrines and the pupil’s hatred of the school and the non-educational punishment. Elimination of the dropout depends on eradication of its motives, he said. The Minister said his Ministry endeavors to eradicate this phenomenon so that the largest possible number of boys and girls be admitted in schools and provided with incentives to remain in them. The Ministry tries to reach the children at home for registering them in schools, Dr. Abdul Rahim said, adding that they are cooperating with the education council, the education departments in the localities and schools and the teachers for finding he suitable solution and removing the obstacles for the entire eradication of the dropout phenomenon. The UN declaration of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) signed by the world leaders in September 2000 obligates the international community to achieve the eight MDG objectives which are: 1) Eradication of dire poverty and hunger, 2) Generalizing the basic education, 3) Gender equality and enabling women, 4) Reducing child mortality, 5) Improvement of puerperal health, 6) Fighting HIV, 7) Guaranteeing environmental sustainability and 8) Establishment of global partnership for development. The Education for All Goal internationally agreed upon seeks to meet the learning demands for all children as well as adolescents and adults by 2015 by expanding and improving care and education in a comprehensive way for the early childhood stage, particularly the most vulnerable and deprived children and endeavor to enable all the children to obtain free and compulsory basic education by 2015. Completion of this stage of education with concentration on girls and children experiencing difficult circumstances and those of the ethnical minorities in addition to guaranteeing education demands for all minors and adolescents by benefitting from suitable learning programmes, gaining the skills required for living and achievement of improvement by 50% of adult literacy, particularly for women. Equality in the opportunities of the basic education and continued education must be achieved for all adults in addition to removing gender disparity in the primary and secondary education. Gender equality should also be achieved in the field of education with concentration on full and equal opportunities for girls to benefit from and obtain good and improved basic learning for getting good and substantial results, particularly with regards to abilities of reading, writing, arithmetic and basic life skills According to a report of the UN General Assembly of 64thy session, a remarkable achievement has been made with regards to the primary education in the developing countries since 2000. Many countries have gone beyond the set registration rate of 90%. The increase in the primary education rate of registration was faster in Africa South of the Sahara where the rate rose from 58% in 2000 to 74% in 2007. However, the fast increase in the rate of registration may result in a pressure on the schools and teachers to offer quality education. The pointed out that about 126 million children still work in risky jobs and more than 72 million children of primary school age worldwide, approximately half of them in African South of the Sahara region, are out of school. Moreover, the dropout rate is still high in many countries, which means that achieving the 100% of the primary school completion still constitutes a major challenge. E N D Mas 
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