School drop-out in latin america and its evolution over the last decade

Abstract

On average, close to 37% of Latin American adolescents between 15 and 19 years of age drop out of school at some point in the school cycle, and almost half of those who drop out do so at an early stage, before completing their primary education. In a number of countries, however, most of the drop-out takes place after that cycle has been completed, often during the first year of secondary education. To a greater or lesser extent, all the countries of the region display shortcomings in their capacity to keep children in school, although almost all of them made progress in this respect during the last decade, especially in the form of a substantial reduction in early drop-out from school. School drop-out displays pronounced differences between countries, but in all of them it is much more frequent in rural areas. In the group of countries which have attained relatively higher levels of education, the global drop out rate in urban areas is between 16% and 25%; in another group school dropout is around 37%, while in a small number of countries with a lower level of primary educational coverage between 40% and 50% of adolescents drop out of school. In rural areas, global drop-out rates range from nearly 30% to over 70% of all the children who enter the school system, with most of the drop-out taking place during the primary cycle.