What is school desertion?

Dropout is a concept used to refer to students who drop out of school and fall outside the education system.

Specialists from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) have identified poverty (with children who are malnourished or have to go out to work), exclusion and schools' poor capacity to provide containment as the main causes of school drop-out.

Another cause that can be mentioned, especially in rural or remote areas of large cities, is distance. Children often have to travel several kilometres to reach the school, which makes it difficult for them to attend classes regularly.

It is the family that has a key role to play in making a school-age child drop out. The fact that he stops attending classes is often related to the characteristics of his environment. Thus, when the child has scarce economic resources, does not have a fixed residence and the parents do not have academic training, factors are given so that the child does not attend school.

However, this is also true when, in addition to the above-mentioned signs of identity, the child's family does not find support for his or her education, his or her parents do not show any interest in it and also when his or her older siblings have dropped out of school.

However, it is undeniable that this drop-out rate is significantly influenced by a series of factors that are related to the child himself or herself and that determine his or her lack of interest or motivation to attend school on a daily basis. These would include, for example, having learning difficulties, having to work outside the classroom and having responsibilities as an adult due to the situation of their own family, having aggressive traits or being more interested in other things than training.

Authors: Julián Pérez Porto and María Merino.

What is school desertion in Mexico?
According to an analysis by the National Institute for the Evaluation of Education (INEE) of Mexico, the highest percentage of school dropouts occurs at the upper secondary level, being higher for men than for women.

The dropout rate among 15-19 year olds represents 14.4% of the total of five million students who in role each year at the upper secondary level in Mexico. This is the highest percentage of dropouts compared to other grades. In primary school it is only 0.6% and in secondary school it represents 4.4%, as the federal data indicate.

This analysis also reveals that the drop-out rate for men is higher than for women at all levels and grades analyzed. The most frequent reasons for dropping out of school are failed subjects and economic factors. Other reasons include health problems, pregnancy, emigration, marriage and even death.

According to the latest Census in Mexico, of the 6.71 million adolescents aged 15-17 in the country, 2.21 million were not in school. These figures show the drama of school dropouts today.

WHO ORIGINATED IT?

Lack of resources and poor school performance are the main reasons students give up studying, according to INEE. In the period 2014-2015 alone, nearly 700,000 high school students dropped out of school, up from 366,214 dropouts in secondary school and 122,599 drop-outs in primary school during the same period.

Across the country there are 17 entities that have rates of non-attendance at the baccalaureate higher than the national average. The worst situation is found in Michoacán, where 45.1% of the adolescents between 15 and 17 years of age did not attend school.

In second place is Guanajuato, with 41% of non-attendance in the age group indicated; in third place is Chiapas, with 39.8%, followed by Zacatecas, with 39% and in fifth place is the state of Guerrero, with 36.9% of non-attendance.

Other entities with higher averages than the national average are: Jalisco, Durango, Aguascalientes, Oaxaca, Puebla, Queretaro, Hidalgo, Morelos and San Luis Potosi.

Authors:

Hugo Fernando Arboleda Jimenez

What is desertion in COLBACH?

Three types of dropouts from COLBACH during the first semester and the beginning of the second semester: dropouts due to dropping out of school, dropouts due to failing grades and drop-outs due to non-registration.

The first type of dismissal corresponds to students who were systematically absent or dropped out of COLBACH at some point during the semester, so they obtained a "W" code (not grade) in at least 5 subjects. This type of exit was the highest in quantitative terms (59.6% of the total number of students disenrolled in the first semester and 16.9% of the total number of students enrolled) and appeared associated with a series of "precursor" factors: previous work experience, not living in bi-parental families, having low COMIPEMS and secondary school grades, and having low educational expectations. The qualitative research revealed a low level of school involvement among these students, which is derived not only from external factors but also from a series of institutional practices.

The second type of dismissal, for failure, is equivalent to 7.8% of the first semester enrollment and 31.5% of the total number of students who failed to attend. Quantitative results revealed that students with lower COMIPEMS scores and lower average scores in high school are more prone to this type of exit. For its part, the qualitative work showed a lack of institutional mechanisms to support students who have problems with school achievement and poor academic performance.

The third type of exit corresponds to students who, having accredited the first semester, did not re-enroll in the second semester (2.2% of the total number of new students). In this profile we found students who chose not to continue in the COLBACH because they consider that it is not a good institution to carry out the higher secondary studies, as well as students with problems of achievement or difficulties for the school involvement that, although they managed to pass the first semester with several non-accredited subjects, they did not re-register.

Authors:

-Dr. Patricio Solís

 El Colegio de México

 -Dra. Alejandra Leal

Finally it shows a graph of how much is the school dropout of young people from 15 to 24 years old:

As you can see in the graph, in the year 2000, 33% of young people between 15 and 24 years old attended school, in 2015 44% of people in these ages go to a school. The difference by sex is just over one percentage point with 45% of men and 44% of women.