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Newsletters 2016-11-18 Newsletter 78 Why Kids Drop Out of School! 8 reasons why kids drop out of school in South Africa By Staff WriterMay 28, 2015, Business Tech All South Africans have a right to basic education and the Bill of Rights obliges government to progressively make education available and accessible through reasonable measures. A new survey conducted by Stats SA from January to December 2014 shows the top reasons why children either dropped out of, or did not attend an education institution. According to key findings from StatsSA’s General Household Survey (GHS), in 2014, 33,4% of individuals aged 5 years and older attended an educational institution. Nationally, approximately 87% of individuals above the age of five years who attended educational institutions, attended school, while a further 4.9% attended tertiary By comparison, only 2.5% of individuals attended further education and training (FET) colleges, StatsSA said. The survey found that there were approximately 14 million learners at school in 2014, while 783,545 students were enrolled at higher education institutions -universities and universities of technology – in 2014. Nearly a quarter (23.5%) of learners cited a lack of money as the main reason for not attending an educational institution while 17.7% reportedly fell out due to poor academic performance. Although 11.6% of individuals left their studies as a result of family commitments – getting married, minding children and pregnancy – it is noticeable that females were much more likely to offer this as a reasons than males. Approximately 10% of individuals reported that education was useless. The top reasons why kids aged 7 to 18 drop out or do not attend school are:
12.3% of individuals cited other, unspecified reasons. Nationally, (1) a lack of books and (2) high fees were singled out as the most important problems experienced by learners in public schools, followed by (3) large classes and (4) bad facilities, the study found. |