ONCE AGAIN-ST ABANDON OPENING TO NEW COUNTRIES EXPERIENCES INSTITUTE OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES BUCHAREST 30 MAY 2008

SCHOOL ABANDON AND DROPOUT PHENOMENON IN ROMANIA

Drop out phenomenon in Romania At formal level the education in Romania is a right guaranteed by the Constitution; To the educational process have access all children and young aged 6/7 -15/16 years old (compulsory education), no matter their social and ethnic origin, neither gender nor religion.

Situations regarding school abandon phenomenon Illiteracy/ no school attendance: children that do not begin their educational path at all ; School abandon or drop out:  children or young aged under 16 that leave school without completing the compulsory education; Reduced frequency/ truancy: is the in-between situation in which the student goes to school in such manner to receive social allowance from the government.

Concepts used in relation with school abandon School failure Drop out Truancy Repetency Illiteracy

School failure It is the impossibility or incapacity of the student of achieving pedagogical goals; Reasons: vary from the quality of education and educational process to individual problems of students (e.g: disinterest, different cognitive abilities, etc.); How it is measured: by the consequences (truancy, retaking the year, etc.).

School failure Some causes: –lack of minimal preparation for the school demands/requests and the insufficient number of kindergartens and of teachers; –long distances between home and school and lack of transportation in rural area; –Insufficient services in educational and psychological personnel in selecting, identifying and supporting students; –homework overloading student’s free time, etc.

School failure Conclusion: The lack of links between schools and families, the negative influence of the peer group, migration of families, the working situation involving children participation, are all premises for school failure and if not intervened to premises for school abandon.

School abandon Social and educational factors: socio-economical problems of the family in supporting the child’s education needs (food, clothing, and didactical materials); some parents may prefer that the children or young stay at home and help in the household, go to work to help support the family financial needs or to take care of their little brothers or sisters when the parents are at work (the rate of impact is higher in the rural area).

School abandon schools infrastructure; human resources and the preparation of those (generally they are enough as number but not always well prepared); in some departments there are not enough didactical materials to support the teaching process.

School abandon Individual characteristics staying at the basis of school abandon: health; psycho-intellectual development; self-image and self-esteem; the general attitude towards knowledge in general and school in particular (influenced by family, group of friends, social and cultural background), etc.; motivation for learning.

School abandon Aspects regarding minority groups (especially roma population): transmission of cultural values and traditions mostly on oral ways (some changes have occurred in the educational curricula including aspects of culture, language and history); lack of legal documents that allow the to enroll them in school. School does not always manage to reduce the individual and social differences of children on a long-term situation so the dropping out phenomenon intervenes (in some cases it is directly the illiteracy phenomenon).

Statistical information The rate of school abandon: –the difference between the number of students enrolled at the beginning of the school year and those held in evidence at the end of the same school year; –a statistic situation provided by the National Institute of Statistics for each phase in educational process.

Primary and secondary education Between 2000 and 2005 has increased continually, from 0.6% in to 1.7 % in 2004 – 2005; : the abandon rate has increased almost three times for both cycles and more specific three times for gymnasium and two times for primary education and the abandon rate is higher in rural areas compared with urban areas.

High school and arts and crafts school The abandon rate has a continuum descendant tendency for both cycles and for both male and female population. Although decreasing, the abandon rate is still at a high level in professional education (arts and crafts school) and it indicates some existing problems of inner efficiency of the system in this area.

Dealing with school abandon and dropping out Educational projects based on identifying problems and proposing different strategies of approach in this situation, in order to adjust the educational process to real the needs of groups and social situation, for example: –Rural Education Project financed by The World Bank, Romanian Government and Local Communities it is based on stimulating attendance at the education; –Pilot Intervention Program in the Priority Educational Areas (PEA) in partnership with the Ministry of Education, Research and Youth, Country Schools Inspectorates, International Labour Organization – International Program on the Erasing Children Labour (ILO-IPEC) Romania, with the goal of prevention and decreasing the number of children no attending school and the social integration of the children in social risk.

Dealing with school abandon and dropping out The Participation to Education of the Roma Children in partnership with the Institute of Educational Sciences and the Institute for Research on the Quality of Life, UNICEF Romania, Soros Open Network Romania. The project had the aim to contribute to the identification and analysis of the causes, which generate a low participation to education, to find solutions in order to improve the problems that would lead to an increased number of government and civil society initiatives, and also to draft education policy recommendation for the Roma student population.