Dr Sheetal Bhoola,
High dropout rates at schools persist in South Africa despite us celebrating an improved, higher pass rate. This remains an alarming concern as the Zero Dropout School Campaign research statistics indicate that approximately 40% of learners do not complete secondary schooling for multiple reasons. This persistence can have detrimental impacts on our society in the long term. These individuals lack pivotal skills that prevent them from becoming active and good societal citizens. Their capacity to be actively involved in the development of society is limited, and they tend not to abide by laws and regulations.
Without a secondary schooling qualification, youth are tempted to engage in deviant and criminal behaviour to survive and earn a livelihood. Often, children who are not at school are lured by drug lords to engage in the selling and promotion of drugs and their consumption. Frequently, such engagements encourage these children to become drug addicts as well. Usually, these children are then raised in a society that is associated with verbal, physical, and sexual violence. In addition, they are often exposed to psychological violence and socio-economic abuse.
Then, some attempt to earn a livelihood through menial jobs and the informal economy. It's challenging and tedious for many with minimal certainty of a decent monthly income. Youth who attempt to become employed and integrate socially struggle because they lack basic skills taught at secondary schools in South Africa. These skills include reading and writing for understanding and comprehension, mathematics, critical thinking, and communication skills, which lead to interpersonal communication skills, problem-solving, digital literacy, adaptability, and basic life skills like time management and organization. The above-listed abilities are essential for any individual to become efficient within their tertiary or further education and workplace.
The research study conducted by the Zero Dropout School campaign also highlighted that many young men tend to drop out because of poor academic performance and negative perceptions of their schooling environment, which are often influenced by interpersonal challenges with the educators, principals and their classmates. Usually, these males leave to pursue technical or artisanal training because they believe they cannot perform academically to pass. One must also question why learners become despondent during their high school career. Young women tend to drop out because of pregnancy, household and childcaring responsibilities, which they are forced to adopt because of socio-economic circumstances. The prevalence of child-headed households has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as high unemployment rates in South Africa. Many South Africans have left their residence to seek employment elsewhere and have left young teenagers to care for their households in their absence. Female dropout rates persist because of patriarchal cultural values and perspectives. In many homes in sub-Saharan Africa, the girl child is forced to leave school if there are insufficient funds for education amidst families. The presumption that females do not need education as much as males do persists and encourages the sustenance of traditional gender-assigned roles in patriarchal societies.
The BELA bill, which has been recently mandated, attempts to address the dropout challenge of learners but fails to do so adequately. Children must be at school from grade R, and parents will be penalized if this isn't true. Still, the bill does not factor in the number of families that would like to enrol their children in school but cannot do so because of poverty, the lack of food and necessities and for the impoverished, earning their daily meal is a more significant challenge than sending their child to school. In addition, the school feeding programs have been successful and unsuccessful in certain provinces, resulting in parents not trusting the program, the facilitators, service providers, or the schools. This also discourages parents from sending their children to school as they are not assured that their child will receive a healthy, nutritious meal as promised by the government.
The BELA Bill does not consider the multiple reasons why we experience high dropout rates in South Africa. The systematic approach to combatting this challenge would be to investigate and analyze why the choice to drop out of school is made. In some instances, in rural KwaZulu-Natal, children struggle with transportation access to go to school. Some schools are still awaiting infrastructural development, yet national budgets for school infrastructure were underutilized in 2024.
There needs to be a specific policy which supports that school attendance needs to be mandatory till grade 10 at least and supported with technical and vocational training opportunities for these school dropouts. A policy framework should be developed specifically to decrease the school dropout rate so that we can progress collectively and horizontally as a society. This will also assist in addressing the inequality of classes, education, and social structures that divide our society and contribute to divisiveness and the lack of social cohesiveness. Central to the purpose of education for all is the prospect of alleviating South Africans from poverty and uplifting our society so that we can develop collectively, economically, and socially.
*Dr Sheetal Bhoola is an academic at The University of Zululand and the Academic Director of StellarMaths (Maths and English Tuition) Durban.
DAILY NEWS