The Risk for Boys from Poor Communities to Drop out from School: the Case of Khartoum, Sudan
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Yousif & Mohammed. Space and Culture, India 2020, 8:1 Page | 187 https://doi.org/10.20896/saci.v8i1.711 RESEARCH OPEN ACCESS The Risk for Boys from Poor Communities to Drop out from School: The Case of Khartoum, Sudan Nagwa Babiker Abdalla Yousif†* and Shadia Abdel Rahim Mohammed¥ Abstract In the current world, poverty and education are interconnected. Low level of education is the cause of poverty, as extreme forms of poverty do not allow many children to get a good education. This study investigates the risk factors that significantly increase the likelihood of pupils dropping out of school in Khartoum, Sudan. To accomplish the research, two factors are selected, namely absenteeism and low performance of pupils from poor, disadvantaged communities. A comprehensive interviewing is used to collect the necessary primary data along with the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) data. The life of pupils is characterised by multi-dimensional poverty apace with illiteracy, displacement and large family size, parents' engagement in low paid jobs. The pupils presented multiple reasons (related to poverty) for their absenteeism and low performance. The results indicate that pupils are not clear with their future perspectives whether to drop out of the school or to continue their studies. The study concludes that poverty is the main reason for absenteeism and low performance that increases the likelihood of pupils dropping out of school. Keywords: School Education; Poor Communities; Absenteeism; Migration; Performance; Sudan †Assistant Professor, College of Humanities and Sciences, Department of Sociology, Ajman University, Ajman, United Arab Emirates * Corresponding Author, Email: [email protected]; [email protected] ¥Professor, School of Rural Extension Education and Development, Ahfad University for women, Omdurman, Sudan. © 2020 Yousif & Mohammed. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Yousif & Mohammed. Space and Culture, India 2014, 1:3 Page | 188 Introduction exclusion. Besides, mere school attendance does The issue of poverty is widely discussed in the not guarantee that children are learning. Over literature, but it will be counter-hegemonic and half the world's children cannot read and innovative to study poverty as a multi- understand a simple text by the age of 10 (World dimensional phenomenon. The multi- Bank, 2019). For each country, household wealth dimensional measurement expands the scope of is consistently the strongest predictor of school poverty analysis and constitutes an advanced attendance (Roby et al., 2016). and alternative way of measuring and explaining Recently, primary education has been a priority poverty (Alkire et al., 2017; Fahel & Teles, 2018). amongst governments, mainly due to its The mixed picture of progress can be seen perceived role in reducing poverty. With that, through the lens of the Global Multidimensional governments often lack sufficient resources to Poverty Index, produced by the United Nations provide school education of acceptable quality Development Programme and the Oxford (Kadzamira & Rose, 2003). There is rapid urban Poverty and Human Development Initiative. expansion and poverty in Khartoum as a result of Today, 1.3 billion people in developing countries the overwhelming influx of migrants, the squalor are multidimensionally poor (Alkire et al., 2017; and expansion of squatter areas around Human Development Report, 2019). Khartoum (Abusin, 2005). The Khartoum State of In 2010, the United Nations replaced HPI with Sudan has the highest enrolment rate for the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). MPI, primary education compared to other states which is grounded in the capability approach, (UNICEF, 2014; Ministry of Education, 2013). identifies overlapping deprivations at the Khartoum is also the state where multi- dimensional poverty is the least for the children household level in health, knowledge and standard of living, and shows the average group, in terms of prevalence and breadth of number of poor people and deprivations with multi-dimensional poverty (Ballon & Duclos, which poor households contend. The MPI 2016). dimensions are reflected in ten indicators: Scholars argue that poverty is both a cause and nutrition, child mortality (health), years of an effect of insufficient access to or incomplete schooling, school attendance (education), education (Roy et al., 2015; Hungi et al., 2018). cooking fuel, toilet, water, electricity, floor, Children of low-income families are less likely to assets (living standards). People are considered enrol in and complete schooling because of the to be multidimensionally poor if they are associated costs of attending schools, even deprived in at least 33% of the mentioned when the education is provided free (Başer & indicators (Alkire et al., 2017; Michalowski, Karaman, 2015; Datzberger, 2018). The cost of 2016). uniforms, supplies and transportation may be Poverty is a high-risk factor for many children in beyond the means of a low-income family, underdeveloped countries to drop out of school. especially when the family has several children About 262 million children and youth of the of school age (Daoud, 2013). developing countries were out of school in Besides, civil unrest and employment instability 2017— 64 million of primary school age, 61 also cause families to migrate (Bhattacharyya & million of lower secondary school age and 138 Vauquline, 2013; Manna, 2018; Maralov & million of upper secondary age (UNESCO, 2019). Sitarov, 2019). These factors make for high drop- The central purpose of this study is to probe the out rates among children (Chapman et al., 2011). risk factors for boys from poor communities of Children that migrate with their parents are Khartoum, Sudan dropping out from school. exposed to exploitation and also face several Sudan is located in Sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, problems in terms of education, including poor Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of psychosocial adaptation (Astashova et al., 2019; Yousif & Mohammed. Space and Culture, India 2014, 1:3 Page | 189 Bakker et al., 2009; Roy et al., 2015; Seregina et Methods al., 2019; Tokareva et al., 2019). Study Area Once children are enrolled in their year 1, they th The study has been conducted on Umbanda have 82% chance of making it to the year 8 Locality with considerable numbers of migrants academic year, with variations ranging from 65% and displaced people from the peripheral areas for children in the poorest quintile to 94% in the of Sudan. wealthiest (Abusin, 2004; Sudan Household Health Survey (SHHS), 2010). Similarly, analysis Research Sample and Data Analysis of population census data indicates that school Four primary schools have been selected with attendance peaks at age 11 and then drops the help of local authority to trace pupils at risks during the following 10 years, in particular. Many of leaving schools. A sample of 120 boys (from pieces of research have been conducted to study classes 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7) have been purposively the risk factors for school expulsion. There is no selected from four schools. Data have been single risk factor that can be accurately used to collected through structured interviews with predict who is at risk of dropping out. The pupils with the help of questionnaires. accuracy of drop-out predictions increases when combinations of multiple risk factors are Ethical issues have been resolved in light of the considered. Hence, this study identifies two risk fact that the results of the study will be used for factors or conditions that significantly increase academic purposes. Permission to conduct the the likelihood of pupils dropping out of school, survey was obtained from the local authorities. namely absenteeism and low performance of It was ethically difficult to interview boys, who pupils from disadvantaged communities. Against had dropped out of school because of poverty. these backdrops, the research objectives are as In recent years the idea of multi-dimensional follows: poverty has received great attention of the . tracing boys at risk to drop out based on researchers and policymakers across the globe their irregular attendance and low (Bagli & Tewari, 2019). The global Multi- performance; dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) was also used for comparative analysis. The global MPI is an . analysing the reasons and effects of index of acute multi-dimensional poverty that irregular attendance; covers over 100 countries. It is calculated using . analysing the reasons and effects of low data from the most recent Demographic and performance. Health Surveys (DHS), Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), Pan Arab Project for Family The article begins with an overview of the theory Health (PAPFAM) and national surveys (Global of multi-dimensional poverty. A section is MPI Country Briefing, 2019: Sudan). included in which literature on the relationship between poverty and students' performance is Characteristics of Survey Respondents described, especially with respect to primary The age of studied pupils is higher compared to school children from disadvantaged the normal age of primary school pupils engaged communities. After that, it discusses the in the 8-year compulsory and free programme methods deployed for this study. The final provided for children of 6-13 years old. Besides,