Cape Town - With the true extent of learner dropout rates in the country unclear, calls have been made for regular and robust research to monitor and address the issue.
During a National Assembly committee briefing on Tuesday, the Department of Basic Education data revealed that at least 400 000 children who started Grade 1 in 2011(1 177 089) did not make it to Grade 12 (775 630) in 2022.
Numbers reported for dropout rates in 2021, when Basic Education Deputy Minister Reginah Mhaule briefed the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), showed that at least 200 000 had dropped out of school.
In the same year, the National Income Dynamics Study –Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (Nids-Cram) study indicated that an additional 500 000 pupils, aged 7 to 17, dropped out of school during the pandemic, increasing from 230 000 pre-pandemic.
The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) this week said it did not actively track or report on learner “dropouts”, but rather “learner retention rates”.
“The WCED cannot provide credible analysis for the dropout rate as some learners ‘dropout’ of the system due to pregnancy, societal issues or health, other learners may leave a school for a variety of reasons.”
These learners cannot be deemed as a “drop out” from the education system.
“If we are to consider learner retention rates, the learner retention rates for grades 1-8 (2016-2022) in the Western Cape was 92.8%. In Grades 8-12 (2018 -2022) it was 71.9%,” WCED spokesperson, Bronagh Hammond said.
She said schools followed up on learner absenteeism on a regular basis and School Safety Fieldworkers followed up on learner truancy, meeting parents and mediating between schools, parents and learners to ensure re-integration into schools.
Zero Dropout Campaign Director, Merle Mansfield said they had long advocated for “regular and robust research” to monitor and address dropout rates.
“In our experience, dropout is rarely the result of a single event or issue but rather an intersection of socio-economic push and pull factors such as social injustices, education-related access and expenses, and/or domestic difficulties that force learners out of school. Our education system would benefit hugely from collecting accurate, detailed, and regular information about schools and learners. Collecting the right types of data over time can help us to better understand the needs in our education system, design better policy and programming, and track both learner and policy progress. One of the key improvements in data management Zero Dropout Campaign is currently advocating is the implementation of unique learner identifying numbers that would allow longitudinal tracking of a learners’ journey through school,” she said.
Equal Education researcher Stacey Jacobs added that there are multiple factors that may drive pupils out of the classroom.
“Teachers also experience limitations that may hamper their ability to create a conducive environment, with failing infrastructure,” she said.
Cape Times