School Dropouts of SC and ST Students in Chennai Corporation Schools

S. Peter, K.J. Raman and P. Ravilochanan School Dropouts of SC and ST Students… School Dropouts of SC and ST Students in Chennai Corporation Schools S. PETER, K.J. RAMAN AND P. RAVILOCHANAN The present study aims at culling out the various factors involved in making students from the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) categories to drop out of school. The study found that most of them attend school to have the noon meal and avail of monetary benefits like waiver on exam fees, free uniforms and books. As soon as they join secondary school, SC/ST students were forced to discontinue their studies due to various reasons as compared to other caste students. Due to this, SC/ST students find it difficult to start their own business and get employment only in unskilled jobs. The imperative step at this juncture would be ‘Education for All’ and to stress further ‘compulsory education at any cost for all’ and also to provide proper education for school dropouts. Reverend Dr. S. Peter and Dr. K.J. Raman are faculty with Loyola College, Chennai; and Dr. P. Ravilochanan is Faculty Member, A.M. Jain College, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. INTRODUCTION Venkata Subramanian (1979) analysed the economic aspects of growth of primary education in Tamil Nadu, while Sharma (1983) made an attempt to study the factors, which are responsible for the low enrolment in the schools and subsequent high dropout rates. Seetharamu and Usha Devi (1985) identified various problems of participation in low and high school dropout areas in different regions of Karnataka state. Venkataiah and Naidu (1990) made an attempt to compare the achievement of dropouts and non-starters in non-formal education centres. In 2000–2001, 35.23 per cent of those who entered middle schools, 58.01 per cent of those who entered high schools and 81.49 per cent of those who entered higher secondary schools dropped out. Overall, as per UNICEF calculations, the proportion of school dropouts remains high and has increased from 19.3 per cent in 1991 to 21.9 per cent in 2001. Desetty, Patnam and Gaikwad, (1998) pointed out that a higher per cent of Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) school dropouts belonged to very big families of nine or more members as compared to non-SC and non-ST dropouts. It is a matter of serious concern regarding school dropouts in spite of the efforts taken by the government. These children are left to face life and its challenges without adequate and appropriate skills and they become part of the cheap labour force to be exploited. Human resource School Dropouts of SC and ST Students… 249 wastage occurs in schools and the extent of dropout rate is quite disturbing. In Tamil Nadu, during the academic year 2000–2001, while 40–49 lakhs children enrolled in the primary schools, the enrolment in middle, high school and higher secondary schools remained at 13.94 lakhs, 1.40 lakhs, 1.29 lakhs respectively. While the dropout rate in 2000–2001 was 14.4 per cent at the primary level, it increased to 35.59, 57.89 and 82.30 per cent in middle, high school and higher secondary levels respectively. More than enrolment rates, it is the dropout rates that are a real expression of the nature and quality of education. Kukanur and Saroja (2003) have studied the dynamics of dropout for a smaller group in a rural set-up. In the present study, an attempt has been made to study the factors associated with the school dropouts, particularly for SC and ST students, of Chennai Corporation Schools. METHODOLOGY The study on the SCs and STs involves the use of literature, which focuses mainly on the various problems faced by the educational institutions of this country when it comes to imparting education to this section of the society. Most of the literature illustrates the concept in terms of wastages in human resource management in whatever form they may occur. Wastage in schools refers to the amount of money invested in the education sector and the extent to which the target community is utilising this money. Gupta and Srivastava (1987) executed a sample study stagnation and dropout at primary stage in the educationally backward states. The study is taken up in nine educationally backward states of India. The primary focus of this article was to study the overall perspective of school dropouts, as the literature on school dropout phenomenon, is limited. We focussed on the dropouts from Chennai Corporation Schools, which are aided by the Government of Tamil Nadu. The reasons for selecting the corporation schools were: • The parental status of the children going to corporation schools is low in comparison with the parents of children studying in private schools. • The school dropout rate in corporation schools is at a very high 84 per cent. In contrast, the dropout rate in private schools is almost negligible at 5 per cent. • Life orientation, self-motivation and aspirations of the corporation school-going children is very low. There is an absence of parental support for such children, whereas care, concern and support given by parents of children studying in privately managed schools are high. The present study covers 10 zones of Chennai Corporation Schools, involving all High/Higher Secondary Schools. A total of 64 schools — 38 high schools and 26 higher secondary schools — were included in the study. Different strategies were followed to collect data on school dropouts. 250 S. Peter, K.J. Raman and P. Ravilochanan 1. A stand ard ised In ter view Sched ule was ad min is tered to school drop outs from the se lected high schools and higher sec ond ary schools. The ques tion naire was stand ard ised through pilot studies and pre-testing and hav ing taken into pur view all sta tis ti cal mea sures. The ques tion naire asked for de tails re gard ing socio-demographic fac tors, fam ily size, fam ily type, ed u ca tion and oc cu pa tion of the par ents, and pres ent em ploy ment of school drop outs. It also asked for prob lems of school drop outs and sug- ges tions from their par ents. 2. School au thor i ties, in clud ing ad min is tra tive mem bers, were in- ter viewed and their con crete opin ions re corded. Ques tion naires were also dis trib uted to teach ers, in clud ing head mas ters and head mis tresses, of the cor po ra tion schools. Se nior teach ers num- ber ing 195, han dling classes in the se lected schools at var i ous lev els were also in cluded in the sur vey to get their valu able sug- ges tions. 3. A sep a rate ques tion naire was ad min is tered to stu dents re sid ing in and around slums, and who had stud ied in the cor po ra tion schools in cluded in the study. This was ne ces si tated as the data, which were main tained by these schools, lacked con ti nu ity. The re spon dents in this cat e gory also in cluded par ents of the students who had dropped out. 4. To get the data re gard ing train ing fa cil i ties avail able to school drop outs, data was col lected from 41 non-governmental or gani- sa tions (NGOs), who are ac tively in volved in the train ing pro- cesses (Peter, Raman and Ravilochanan, 2005). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION As many as 569 school dropouts, 195 school teachers (including 25 headmasters and headmistresses), and 41 NGOs were interviewed. Based on their responses, a detailed statistical analysis was carried out using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, version 11.5). The salient features of this survey are highlighted below. Out of the 569 selected school dropouts, 314 (55.2 per cent) were males and 255 (44.8 per cent) were females. Irrespective of sex, the first two children in the family were invariably forced to discontinue from their studies from Standard VIII onwards (427/567). This signifies that the parents of the samples have given importance to job in the case of male children and household duties in the case of female children, without realising the importance of education. In this connection, the government’s educational policies may be geared towards simultaneously providing both education and earning possibilities while learning. The present age of the sample has the mean ± 3.698 years and are in the employable lot without proper education. The educational background of the parents of the children interviewed reveals that they School Dropouts of SC and ST Students… 251 have not studied beyond middle school. The mindset of a child is mostly influenced by its parents’ educational background and it is unfortunate that most of the parents of the underprivileged children are not well-educated. School dropouts pointed out various reasons for their dropping out from the schools and the four clusters of problems that emerged from their responses are: (i) financial and familial; (ii) educational; (iii) personal and physical; and (iv) others. These are specified in Table 1. TABLE 1: Sex-wise Reasons for Dropping Out of School Sex X2 Reasons Total value p-value Male Female Financial and Familial 173 153 326 Educational 198 114 312 Personal and Physical 18 28 46 14.285 p = 0.003 Other problems 18 19 37 Total 407 314 721 Financial and familial problems seem to be the major concern for the school dropouts irrespective of the gender.

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