An investigation of the causes and consequences of student drop-out in government secondary schools of jimma zone

Abstract

The title of this thesis is an investigation of the causes and consequences of student drop-out in government secondary schools of Jimma Zone. To achieve this objective a concurrent mixed methods design was employed. Data were collected from 78 teachers, 49 dropout returnee students 7 Principals and 3 heads of woreda Education Offices using questionnaire and interview. The school principals and heads of woreda Education Offices were the subjects of interview questions. Simple random sampling (lottery method) was employed to select teachers’ respondents and snowball sampling was applied to select the dropout returnee students. Quantitative data were analyzed using frequency, percentage, mean, weight mean, independent sample t-test and multiple regression analysis whereas qualitative data were narrated to substantiate the quantitative data. Moreover, documents of schools and woreda education Offices were consulted to examine the trends and status of dropout rates. Hence, the study revealed that the trends of students’ dropout rates in secondary schools of the study area showed a declining tendency and the highest dropout rates were existed in grade nine. The data also showed that the dropout rate is relatively higher among girls than boys in the study area. The analysis to identify the causes of the problem showed that the high rate of students’ dropout in the study area is the result of in-school and out-school related factors. The finding showed that 35% of the variation in student dropout factors can be explained. When adjusted R2 (∆ R2) is used the model predicts about 34% variation in student dropouts factors. From this, therefore, it is concluded that even though the trends of dropout rate is decreasing for the past consecutive academic years there is still high student dropout in the study area. T he key determinants that affected the pupils’ decision to drop out of school in the study area were the combination of both in-school and out-of-school factors. Depending on the findings of the study, early intervention, changing societal attitude, implementation of poverty reduction strategies, creation of more employment opportunities for students who completed Secondary schools, giving advice to students to spend most of their time on studying rather than wasting their time on household chores, awareness raising on the importance of family planning services, encouraging parental involvement and support and giving awareness to the community on the importance of education were forwarded as recommendations.