European Inclusive Learning Hub

The main aim of this publication is to draw attention to the problem of school drop-outs in the elementary and early secondary education due to various reasons including poor accessibility of school facilities for students with disabilities. 

Indicator A: Enrollment in primary or secondary education, by single year of age; 

Indicator B: Enrollment in early childhood educational development programmes or pre-primary, by single year of age; 

Indicator C: Number of children and adolescents who left school, by single year of age; 

Indicator D: Total enrollment by education level and grade; 

Indicator E: Total number of repeaters by grade; 

Indicator F: Age-specific population data.

Databases with personal information assembled and proved by official bodies on the school level - pupil record (Education ID, National ID (e.g. birth certificate number), Name, School year, School ID, Grade / class, Number of days absent); National level - School records (School ID, School name, District code, Region code); National level - Person records (National ID (e.g. birth certificate number), Name, Sex, Date of birth); National level - Population records (District code, Region code, Population: by single years of age and sex).

Many countries have difficulties developing effective policies to respond to the needs of out-of-school children because of a lack of reliable information. Besides a lack of information on known out-of-school children, there are also many out-of-school children who are unknown or invisible. They are invisible because ministries of education often do not monitor children who have never enrolled in school, and may also exclude children who are not part of the formal schooling system-for example, children with disabilities attending special schools.

The publishers are aiming to improve the current politics towards this issue by improving target-monitoring, implementing new methodology, searching for policy gaps etc. The issue is looked at from different perspectives - a part about exclusion of students with disabilities is included in the discussion as well.

5DE indicators: Dimensions 1 to 3 are part of the Five Dimensions of Exclusion (5DE) model discussed in the Introduction.

• Dimension 1:

• Definition: Percentage and number of children one year younger than the official primary school entrance age who are not in pre-primary or primary school.

• Indicator calculation:

• Percentage: 100% – (number of children one year younger than the official primary school entrance age enrolled in pre-primary or primary education, divided by the number of children one year younger than the official primary-school entrance age).

• Number: Dimension 1 percentage (from the calculation above) × number of children one year younger than the official primary-school entrance age. 

• Dimension 2: (Primary-age out-of-school children)

• Definition: Rate and number of children of primary-school age who are not in primary or secondary school.

• Indicator calculation:

• Percentage: 100% − primary ANER (see the calculation for primary ANER above).

• Number: Dimension 2 percentage (from the calculation above) × number of children of primary-school age.

• Dimension 3: (Lower-secondary age out-of-school children)

• Definition: Percentage and number of children of lower-secondary-school age who are not in primary or secondary school.

• Indicator calculation:

• Percentage: 100% − lower-secondary ANER − percentage of children of lower-secondary school age attending primary education (see the calculation for lower-secondary ANER above).

• Number: Dimension 3 percentage (from the calculation above) × number of children of lower-secondary-school age.                                                  

The main factor of success in that case is to regularily monitor all the changes, but there are a number of difficulties: not all schools may carry out this time-consuming task if it is not enforced and/or financially compensated; teachers generally rely on a list of addresses where children live who have reached school age (for example from the local municipality), but such lists are often inaccurate; and schools may not have any incentive to report this data. 

The publishers of this book expects to improve the system of preventing school drop-outs using following steps:

Step 1. Establish indicators, definitions and benchmarks

Step 2: Prevent, detect and resolve data inaccuracies

Step 3: Update and extend EMIS to incorporate new indicators and methodologies

Step 4: Close gaps in vertical information flows between local, regional and national levels

Step 5: Close gaps in horizontal information flows through cross-sector collaboration

Step 6: Create an early warning system for identifying children at risk of dropping out

Step 7: Create automated reporting routines and analyse reports to inform evidence-informed policies and strategies   

Step 8: Develop and establish evidence-informed policies and interventions

Event dropout rate (may also be referred to as the annual rate or incidence rate) - Measures the proportion of individuals who drop out in a single year.

Status dropout rate (may also be referred to as the prevalence rate)

-measures the proportion of individuals who have dropped out, irrespective of when they dropped out.

Cohort dropout rate (may also be referred to as the longitudinal rate)

- measures what happens to a single group (or cohort) of students over a period of time.

Constant monitoring is the main condition that will lead to success. All the information should be recorded on time and in case of an issue, preventing actions should be taken.

Despite substantial gains in school enrollment since the new millennium, progress has stagnated since 2007.

The usual approaches to tackle the problem of out-of-school children have failed. New and innovative measures are required to reach the remaining out-of-school children who are often from the hardest-to-reach groups, which face multiple, complex and overlapping barriers to schooling.

The Global Initiative on Out-of-School Children was launched jointly by UNICEF and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics in 2010 to make a significant, sustainable reduction in the number of children who are out of school. It aims to support countries in identifying OOSC and children who are at risk of dropping out, analysing the characteristics of these groups of children and the barriers that lead to their exclusion, and subsequently identifying, promoting and implementing sound policies that address exclusion. It considers the problem and means of tackling the problem of OOSC from a multi-sectoral perspective.

The Global OOSC Initiative builds on the Children Out of School: Measuring Exclusion from Primary Education report published jointly by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and UNICEF in 2005. The OOSC Initiative Conceptual and Methodological Framework introduced the ‘Five Dimensions of Exclusion (5DE)’ model, which recognizes the importance of pre-primary education (Dimension 1) in addition to primary education (Dimension 2), and goes beyond primary to include also lower-secondary education (Dimension 3). Moreover, the model focuses not just on OOSC (excluded children), but also on children at risk of dropping out from primary school (Dimension 4) and lower-secondary school (Dimension 5). The Global Out-of-School Children Initiative Operational Manual has since replaced the OOSC Initiative Conceptual and Methodological Framework, and serves as the how-to guide for conducting national studies on OOSC.

1. Sources of information are databases based on results of questionnaires for both teachers and students, common observation, indicator calculations etc.

These are provided by:

- Institutes/departments which manage statistics directly related to or relevant to OOSC

-Ministries/departments concerned with children with disabilities (for example ministry of labour and social protection, ministry of social development).

-Other ministries/departments relevant to children who are particularly at risk of being out of school

-Ministry of education departments/institutes

-Cross-sector committees at national/regional/district level on child rights, OOSC.

-Any organizations whose work is relevant to monitoring out-of-school children, for example the World Bank, INGOs and NGOs working with vulnerable children.

-Regional/district education department/statistics staff/social workers.

-Focus groups with parents and children in a few areas with a high number of OOSC (ideally with actual OOSC, for example via local NGOs).

-Focus groups with school staff in different types of school settings, for example one school with children with disabilities, one urban primary school and one rural primary school, preferably schools in areas with a large number of OOSC (if known).

Classifications of questions in the questionnaires: Questions concerning indicators, definitions and legislation, Questions concerning how institutions manage information relevant to OOSC, Questions concerning the type and format of data available and how it is recorded at different levels, Questions concerning legal issues, Questions concerning the school level, Questions concerning monitoring and data usage, Questions concerning possible improvements to current approaches.

A user has to have a basic knowledge in legislation regarding school- leaving prevention. He should know already exciting methods and amend them according to this books suggestion or/and add new ones. The user should have access to and organizational organization, that he offer this new prevention system to.