Abstract:
The study aimed at investigating wastage in second cycle primary education focusing on drop
out and grade repetition limited to the case of west Hararghe zone.The study is based on the
annual statistical abstract of the zonal education office (2009-2010) characterized high rate of
dropout (19.3and17.9 percent) and grade repetition (8.4and7.5percent).This indicates the low
internal efficiency and high educational wastage.So, inorder to achieve this purpose, descriptive
research design was used. Primary and secondary data collection methods were implmented to
collect data in twenty one target second cycle primary schools and zonal education offices. A
total of five hundred thirty two respondent principals, teachers, students and parents participate
in the study.The collected data was analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS)
software. So as to bring out the essential patterns the data was analyzed using quantitative
methods and descriptive statistics is used in order to examine the pattern of the responses.
Through this study, school based, learners and parents related causes to students dropout was
revealed.And school based and instruction related causes to the students repetition were
identified. The degree and weight of educational wastage in the second cycle primary schools
were exposed; there are high dropout and repetition problems in the zone as well as in the sample
schools.
The long distance from home to school; cultural impacts, parents lower standards of living, lack
of parental encouragements of the students and lack of school facilities were the major causes of
dropout forced the learners to given less attention to their learning, frequent absenteeism and
lead them to score poor academic performance consequences to high repetition.Soit
recommended that the possible measures should be taken in order to handle the wastage in
education through dropping out before effecting a particular level of education results, wastage
in resources and reduce number of graduates then transfer to the grade repetition responsible for
hinder the intake capacity of school.
