ENROLLMENT & RETENTION OF SCHOOL DROP-OUT INTO SCHOOL

PROBLEM ANALYSIS

The main factor that account for the problem of school drop-out in the community is poverty. The issue of economic hardship in particular, has been a hindrance to countless number of students or pupils who had the wish to further their education to the highest peak. These people had to drop out of school because they could not adequately finance their education.

Secondly, the issue of school drop-out in the community is as a result of poor academic performance of children in the school. According to some parents interviewed in the study area, everything was being done on their part including payment of fees and provision of materials for academic work to keep the children in school but they have never been serious with their books and end up by dropping out of school.

Moreover, school drop-out experienced in the community is as a result of the girl-child becoming pregnant.

The quality of education in the community is insufficient to impact sustainable literacy, knowledge, skills and habit required for full social and economic participation in the society. As a result, some parents do not willingly finance their children with the little income they have. They belief that children will lack employable skills after completion, and besides they may not even gain employment. Children of such parents eventually drop out of school.

The problem of school drop-out and its effects are not only felt by the dropped out alone, but it cut across the broad spectrum of society. The situation does not stop as drop out but it grows and develops into other problems as a small or tiny mustard seed grows and develops into a bigger tree.

School drop-out is likely to be in a low income-earning job, thereby experiencing a very low standard of living. People who fall within this range tends to develop low self-esteem and therefore cannot stand-up for their rights; Becoming passive citizens instead of being assertive.

Parents who fall into this situation, whose daughters have also dropped out, end up pushing these young ladies into marriage to lessen the burden on them. In some situations, the family tends to depend so much on the young lady and the husband for survival. The mother especially ends up interfering in the daughter's marriage sometimes breaking it if enough money is not forth coming.

School drop-out can lead to serious social problems such as armed robbery, reduction in revenue to the state, prostitution, making the society and the nation unsafe and extremely ungovernable. I believed that the drop out phenomenon can be curbed if not completely eradicated because the causes and the underlying factors are human.