School Dropout: Do Reasons Remain The Same Across Generations?

Discontinuing education has major social, economic and health implications. Parents who drop out from school are often unable to motivate their children to continue their schooling. Thus school dropout becomes a vicious intergenerational issue. Hence a study was undertaken to examine the reasons for school dropout across two generations with the objective to determine the reasons for school dropout among school age children and their parents in an urban slum. Results: It was found that 40.3% (N=118) of adult males (fathers) were dropouts and 43.7% of (N=128) adult females (mothers) were dropouts. The reasons varied widely between the genders (p<0.05). A major reason for school dropout which persists across the generations is the lack of interest in studies. This indirectly suggests that there is a lack of motivation to continue education which is persisting across generation. Generating interest in continuing schooling needs efforts from parents as well as authorities to break the intergenerational cycle of school dropout.