The Ministry of Education commissioned a consultation exercise with principals, education sector representatives and with students who have left school before turning 16 to identify the key barriers and incentives around student retention in New Zealand.
Key Results
Students at Risk of Leaving School Early
Most students who are at risk of leaving school before the age of 16 are identifiable, with around three-quarters of principals (76%) believing that students who leave school before the age of 16 have similar attributes or experiences, and nearly all principals (91%) believing there are typical warning signs for identifying students at risk.
The similar attributes and experiences mentioned by principals are disengagement (43%), low achievement (35%), dysfunctional family (34%), lack of family support (30%) and a lack of social skills (24%). The warning signs for identifying students at risk are truancy (67%), disengaged attitudes (48%), disruptive (35%), lack of family support (25%) and negative out of school behaviour (19%).
Early school leavers corroborate the principal’s views to a large extent in terms of being disengaged (as evidenced by most early leavers being truant at least weekly (72%), and most going to school/classes late [70%]) and having issues at home (29%) such as parents separating (involving a custody battle), a death in the family, transience (i.e. constantly moving area/school), alcohol and drug related issues, students having to care for/support family members (by staying at home and/or working), abusive parents (verbally and physically) and financial issues resulting in poor living conditions.
The underlying causes for low academic achievement may include students falling behind in school work, finding school difficult, and having literacy and numeracy issues. Over half (56%) of the early school leavers said they had fallen behind in their school work (because of truancy, sickness, moving around – both houses and schools) and found it hard to catch up. Half the early leavers (50%) found school hard, and around half (46%) said they had either literacy (25%) or numeracy issues (25%), with 13 percent of early leavers saying they had both.
A point of difference between principals and early school leavers is that 45 percent of early school leavers say their teacher wanted them to leave school compared to only 16 percent of principals saying some teachers wanted students to leave.
Barriers to Retaining At Risk Students
The factors seen by principals as barriers to student retention can be categorised as those relating to:
- Students as individuals (e.g. attitudes [disengaged, not wanting to be at school], disruptive behaviour).
- The student’s family or external support network.
- The school’s offering to the student (e.g. the curriculum, relevance of subjects).
- Resources (e.g. specialised staff, funding for co-curricular activities and high student to staff ratio).
- Teachers (e.g. struggling to cope with meeting the diverse needs of students, a lack of effective teaching - specifically, ‘soft skills’ such as connecting with the students, engaging them, managing the classroom and teaching to different levels within the classroom).
Supporting Student Retention
A number of things were identified as necessary to encourage students to stay at school. These include curriculum adaptation (external courses and work experience), making school relevant to at risk students, extra academic support (catch-up tuition), interagency connections, building linkages to family and community, attendance management, teacher training (as noted above) and provision of health and social services to deal with risk indicators early.
The most effective things that principals say their school does to keep students at school until age 16 include curriculum adaptation (49%), provide work experience (24%) and encourage family involvement (22%).
It should be noted that early leaving exemptions are regarded as necessary for schools to have for use in extreme cases (e.g. violence to other students or teachers), and also for use with early leavers who have a genuine opportunity to undertake a pathway (employment or study) that will provide them with realistic future employment opportunities
Suggestions to improve the process of obtaining an early leaving exemption include making the process harder for the student (important in supporting students who might otherwise drop out) and closer monitoring of students once they have left
Supporting Schools to Encourage Student Retention
Over two-thirds of principals (69%) agree there is scope to develop new incentives to encourage schools to retain students to the age of16. However, not all principals agree that all students should be retained until the age of 16 (20% of principals do not believe that the benefits of keeping disruptive students at school who want to leave means that every effort should be made to ensure that they stay at school until the age of 16, and 37% of principals think that keeping students at school who want to leave causes more problems than benefits).
The majority of principals (80%) believe the Ministry can help schools to encourage greater student retention6 through additional resources (e.g. funding for teachers (72%), for co-curricular activities (63%),for attendance management (57%) and ‘other’ funding (24%) such as mental health services and programmes to help ‘at risk’ students). Principals were also interested in assistance to make inter-agency connections (61%), with the most frequently mentioned agencies being CYFs (40%), the Police (19%) and Work and Income (19%). Around a fifth of principals (23%) also wanted advice (e.g. on successful programmes and support avenues).