Primary school drop-out on the decline

The recently introduced Nine-Year Basic Education (9-YBE) program is already showing positive results, with a recent survey attributing to it the rise in primary school completion rates. The survey, conducted by the Ministry of Education on school drop-out, showed that completion rates increased from 52 to 75 per cent in the 2009/2010 academic year.The survey results were released at the ministry’s Joint Review meeting with education partners. Speaking to The New Times, the Minister of Education, Dr. Charles Muligande, said that the 9-YBE provided security for continuing education of the pupils. “Pupils used to drop out of school before completing primary due to lack of surety that they would continue to secondary, but after the introduction of the 9-YBE, the completion rate has greatly increased,” said Muligande. He added that there was even more hope that the rates could go up as far as 95 percent in the near future as the 9-YBE program gains more ground. The 9-YBE programme began in the 2009 academic year with over 3,000 classrooms built to increase access to the programme. 765 schools are now offering 9-YBE The indicators provided by the ministry also reveal that the transition rates from Primary Six to Senior One have considerably increased to 88 percent up from 54 percent the previous year which demonstrates the success of policies to accelerate progress towards the program. However, according to Muligande, the sector still has a number of challenges that need particular focus so as to improve the quality of education. Muligande highlighted some of the key challenges as the repetition and dropout rates at primary level which remain at 15.3 and 15.2 percent respectively, the pupil to classroom ratio and low levels of competence in English amongst primary and secondary school teachers. Ends

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Primary school drop-out on the decline