Educational Practices for Diminishing the Dropout Risk of the First-Year College Students from an Agronomic University in Romania. Preliminary Considerations

Abstract

Communication drills a strategic direction of the management of the Faculty of Agriculture, within the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, to support the first-year students that are exposed to the risk of university dropout, belonging, in particular, to the disadvantaged groups. The target group was formed in the university year 2017-2018 out of a number of 150 students, who met the criteria of the project.Among these, 77 students (48 %) got grades of 7 or below 7 at the Baccalaureate; 77 (51,3 %) belong to monoparental , low income families or with parents who work abroad; 83 (55,3 %) come from the countryside; 10 (6%) are orphans of one parent or both parents; 2 (0,13) have been in foster care, orphanages or similar institutions. Moreover, older research (Stanciu &al, 2011) showed that the main problem the first-year students have to face in their effort to fit into the academic work is the lack of skills of efficient learning (almost 78%).The courses of action for diminishing university dropout were the following: the awareness of the age and individual peculiarities of the students; the emphasis of the teaching-learning-assessment process on the student; the initiation and the running of social-emotional development programmes; the individualized counseling of the students for facing the accommodation problems which may occur during the first years of the bachelor studies; the familiarization with the efficient learning techniques which may break new grounds toward lifelong learning; the learning of efficient communication techniques; the involvement in volunteering actions; the development of a partnership between the family, the university, the community and the economic entities.