Boredom a reason for high dropout rate
Forty or 5O years ago, students usually quit school to help on the farm or to put food on their family's table. Now, many dropouts say they leave school because they're bored. Students don't quit school anymore because their parents need them to help at home or on the farm. And hardly anybody has to take a job so the family can eat. But those were big reasons why Canadians aged 55 or more failed to finish high school. Meanwhile, younger Canadians drop out because they don't like school —twice as common a reason than for older adults—or because they don't see any good reason for continuing. "In the '70s and '80s, people stop themselves from staying in school; older Canadians were stopped by outside forces, often financial," says Dr. Paul Nesbitt. The study uncovered this shift in the reasons for dropouts by examining the answers of nearly 800 adults who hadn't graduated from high school. Well over half of the older group talked about being blocked, one-quarter of the time for financial reasons. By contrast, half of those aged 18 to 34 mentioned boredom, lack of interest in education or wanting to work as their drop-out reasons. Another 20 per cent blamed the school system. These findings suggest educators will have a tough time making much of a dent in Canada's drop-out rate of roughly 30 per cent. But the survey singled out quitting school as a major cause of illiteracy. Among those aged 21 to 25, for example, illiteracy is almost double for school dropouts— 22 per cent versus 13 per cent for high school graduates. |
