School Dropouts: Causes and Implications for National Development

Abstract

Education affects the mind, character and physical structure of every learner because all activities such as cultural heritage of the society are transmitted to the learners for the development of their attitudes, abilities and attributes. Thus, it is an agent of change both for their development and that of the society. Children who left school before completing their school programme have caused a lot of serious damage and danger to the environment because they did not receive complete training through improved relevance, quality and efficient education from the formal school system. Thus, they could not exhibit literacy, numeracy, communicative and life skills including the ethical, moral and civic values to be good citizens. They are categorized as half–baked graduates who do not have the ability to contribute to the development of the nation. Hence, they are harmful to themselves, the family and the nation. This paper is aimed at examining school dropouts as a menace to the society. The paper relied on related journals and empirical literature. The paper also discussed the causes, statistics of school dropouts in Nigeria, problems associated with school dropouts and guidelines for reduction of school dropouts. Recommendations were made among others that – every school should engage in active learning to occupy the learners. Effective communication should be between the teachers and learners so that they could be counseled and encouraged on the usefulness and realities of their careers and the correct usage of methods and instructional materials by the teachers for effective teaching.