Students’ Perceptions of Early School Leaving: A Moroccan Case Study

Abstract

Barriers to learning often refer to difficulties encountered by learners in learning processes that result from a wide range of experiences in the classroom, at school, at home, in the community and/or due to health problems, disability or disorder, and/or social insecurity and similar external factors. These factors lead to the inability of the system to adapt to diversity and lead to the collapse of learning and social justice and, hence, hinder learners' access to education. Several interconnected factors explain the reason of school dropouts, early school leaving, or rejection from school. According to the qualitative and quantitative data collected from students of lower and upper secondary schools, the main findings on students’ perception concerning early school leaving indicate that drugs (71.7 per cent), early marriage (58.7 per cent), household chores (58.7 per cent), agricultural activities (45.7 per cent), the language of study (French and English) (45.7 per cent), illness (43.5 per cent), economic activities (32.6 per cent) are the causes of dropping out of school, while 19.6, 21.7 and 26.1 per cent of them perceive that the lack of infrastructure, poverty and indiscipline lead to expulsions respectively. The results also show that uninteresting lessons (40 and 55 per cent of girls and boys), sexual abuse (68 and 35 per cent of girls and boys) and poor performance (68 and 40 per cent of girls and boys) represent the factors that lead to dropping out of school. The main conclusion of this study is that teachers must have skills and knowledge in inclusive education, communication, dropout factors and obtain training in the mental health of students and psychological education.