IMPLICATIONS for EDUCATION POLICY University of Management
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE VOICES OF OUT OF SCHOOL CHILDREN AND THEIR PARENTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATION POLICY Farzana Nazir ID# 12013093002 Supervisor Name: Prof. Dr. Abdul Hameed Department of Education School of Social Sciences and Humanities University of Management and Technology, Lahore 2019 THE VOICES OF OUT OF SCHOOL CHILDREN AND THEIR PARENTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATION POLICY Farzana Nazir ID# 12013093002 A DISSERTATION Submitted In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in Education Department of Education School of Social Sciences and Humanities University of Management and Technology, Lahore 2019 i Acknowledgement Firstly, I would like to praise God for the gift to me of the ability to engage in research, for His love and for all He has done for me. Secondly, I would like to thank my parents for bringing me into the world, raising me and for all their support. My brother Mohsin Abbas, and my sisters, thanks for all the support. Prof. Dr. Abdul Hameed, my supervisor, thank you for the support, encouragement, patience; and thank you for introducing me to the world of research. I would also like to thank my friend Komal Razzaq, thanks for all the support for walking me into this phase, for all the editing and for his critical comments relating to the content of the research. Thanks to Dr. Shugufta Andleeb who, from the start, encouraged excellence, role-modelled positivity and gave me confidence to believe this was all possible. Thanks for Dr Sadia Shoukat, Dr. Ghazal Khalid, Ms Saima Bibi, Ms. Naheed Akhtar, Ms. Samreen Jalal, Ms. Tanzeela Akram, Ms. Sumera Rashid and Ms. Sajida Saif, as you all were encouraging, supportive, interested and involved. I am so grateful to you for your friendship, your commitment and your open-mindedness. I place on record, my sincere gratitude to the participants of the research who described their personal information and appreciated me for choosing such topic. Their support means a lot for me otherwise it wasn’t possible to do. Farzana Nazir v Dedication This thesis is dedicated to my husband Muhammad Yousaf and our lovely daughters Rida Fatima, Noor Fatima and Zarnain Fatima, who had to endure my long absence while I pursued this research. I am very grateful for their love, patience, support and motivation while I pursued this research. vi Abstract This study was aimed to investigate and document the voices of Out of School Children and their Parents in order to identify some implications for education policy. This study identified major causes for being out of school such as policy barriers because of poor legislation, psychological and cultural constraints, demographic changes, and socioeconomic disparities. Qualitative research approach with a case study design and the ethnographic method was used to explore the views for being out of school for children and their parents in-depth and to get a clear picture of their problems which were the main causes of being out of school. For this purpose Thematic analysis of interviews of both children and parents regarding out of school and drop out children, focus group discussion of children, focus group discussion of parents, reasons for out of school Facebook data and reasons for dropout Facebook data was conducted. This process was done with the help of NVivo 11 plus software. The population comprised of Out of School Children and their parents in Punjab. The sample was selected on the base of the multistage sampling technique and in the last stage IV researcher used the purposive sampling technique for the selection of out of school children and one of their parents from rural and urban union councils of selected Tehsils. Total interviews of 216 out of school children and their 103 parents, and 108 dropout children and their 75 parents were conducted for this study. Two types of interview schedules were scheduled that sought information related to being out of school; one for Out of School Children and the other for their parents in which questions for Out of School and for Dropout were included. Focus group of children had 08 participants while focus group of parents had 07 participants. The thematic analysis of interviews, focus group discussion and Facebook data highlighted the many reasons of out of school in the form of codes and then to sub themes and vii themes. The qualitative results explored four same themes for Out of School Children and their Parents: Socioeconomic Factors (poverty, unemployment, family problems and parents’ occupation), Cultural Factors (area’s environment, the literacy rate in that area, female problems, and teachers’ behaviour), Demographic Factors (family size, living area status and distance to school) and Psychological Factors(adjustment problems, future dreams, parents and children’s relationship and subject problems) that make unable children go to school and the fifth theme was identified only by parents, i.e. Policy Barriers (organizational and structural). Overall, the findings of this study reveal that poverty, hopeless parents, parent’s ignorance, parents' lack of concern towards education of their children, lack of awareness as they don’t know the importance of education, focus on basic needs for survival, underprivileged, distance to school, give importance to boys, and large family size were the main causes for being out of school. Parents’ sudden death, drugs, separation, abuses and less income emotionally distress the children and they think about their survival rather than for their education. Some reasons for dropout were also found from this study, e.g. teacher behavior, distance to school, unproductive or boring curriculum, change in curriculum, no support from parents in studies, lack of equipment, schooling is a business, children’s domestic and earning responsibilities leave no time for studies and homework, own diversity is ignored, pushed to meet the standard of the school, lack of motivation, earning member of the home and preferred to do some kind of job, lack of future guidance, unattractive classroom, and sudden changes in the education system. Sudden domestic problems, such as father’s death, parent’s illness, parent’s divorce, take care of sibling, parent’s discouragement and parent’s conflicts become the causes of drop out. viii Overall the data reflect that since majority of classmates of dropouts are studying further whereas dropouts are now busy in child labour and feel jealous for their fellows. Sometimes peer’s influence and drugs’ addiction become the cause to leave the school. Preference to religious education and early marriage increases the rate of dropouts. Furthermore, some implications of core results were suggested for education policy. ix Table of Contents Chapters Contents Page No. Title Page i Author’s Declaration ii Plagiarism Undertaking iii Certificate of Approval iv Acknowledgement v Dedication vi Abstract vii Table of Contents x List of Tables xii List of Figures xiii Chapter I Introduction 1 Problem Statement 11 Objectives of Study 12 Questions of the Study 12 Significance of the Study 13 Operational Definition of Terms 13 Chapter II Review of Literature 15 Out of School Children Conceptual Framework 19 Approaches for Policy Implication 40 Universal Declaration of Human Rights 41 Education for All (EFA) 42 Education in Pakistan 45 Policies and Plans for improving Education in 47 Pakistan Causes or Barrier for Out of School Children 48 Rationale of the study 65 Chapter III Methodology and Procedure 68 Theoretical Perspective of the Study 68 Case Study Design and Ethnographic Methods 74 Sample of Study 75 Instruments of study 77 Ethical Issues 82 Procedure of Study 83 Delimitations of the Study 85 Limitations 85 Chapter IV Results 86 Thematic Analysis 86 Interviews 87 Focused Group Discussion 172 Facebook Data 179 Comparisons of Voices 185 Theoretical Model 196 Summary of Thematic Analysis 197 Chapter V Findings, Discussion, Conclusion, Implications for 200 Education Policy , and Future Recommendations Findings of Data 200 Discussion 224 x Conclusion 246 Implications for Education Policy 254 Future Recommendations 259 References 260 Appendix A Interview Schedule for Children 276 Appendix B Interview Schedule for Parents 282 Appendix C Voices of Out of School Children (Find it in CD) 288 Appendix D Voices of Out of School Children's Parents (Find it in 391 CD) Appendix E Voice of Dropout Children (Find it in CD) 434 Appendix F Voices of Dropout Children's Parents (Find it in CD) 480 Appendix G Focused Group Discussion for Children (Find it in 514 CD) Appendix H Focused Group Discussion for Parents (Find it in CD) 517 Appendix I Reasons for Out of School (Facebook Data) (Find it 520 in CD) Appendix J Reasons for Dropout (Facebook Data) (Find it in CD) 521 Appendix K Date wise Data Collection From Union Councils 522 (Find it in CD) Appendix L Descriptive Results of Interviews in the form of 523 Frequency Counts Appendix M List of Panel of Experts 549 Similarity Report 550 xi List of Tables Table Title Page 1.1 Why are Children not in School? 9 2.1 Zones of Exclusion related to types of children 20 2.2 Visibility Model and the 5DE 31 2.3 Types of Dropout 32 2.4 Characteristics of Out of School Children 34 2.5 Profiles of Excluded Children in Pakistan 35 2.6 Policies and Strategies for Out of School Children in Pakistan 47 2.7 Reasons for being Out of School 60 3.1 The Research Paradigms 70 3.2 No. of Children and Parents in Selected Union Councils of 9 76 Divisions 3.3 Frequencies and Percentages of Age of All Out of School 76 Children 4.1 Summary of Discourse Analysis of Interviews of Out of School 198 Children and Dropout Children 5.1 Results and Policy Implications 256 xii List of Figures Figure Title Page 1.1 Countries with more than 0.5 million out of school children, 2010 4 1.2 Primary school age out of school children in different region, 5 2010 2.1 CREATE Zones of Exclusion 22 2.2 Classification of the out-of-school population, by school exposure 24 2.3 Five Dimensions of Exclusion 25 2.4 Categories of Dimension 2 & 3.