Demographic and Socioeconomic Covariates of Primary School Pupils Attrition in Ethiopia
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Date
2001-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Next to smvival, food, clothing and shelter, education is children's greatest need after the age
of six or seven. Without education, chi ldren can do little when they become adults, to improve
their living conditions and to participate in development activities.
Primary education eqUIps people with the ski lls of literacy and numaracy and therefore
contributes to poverty reduction by increasing labour productivity. Besides, primary education
serves as a bridge towards slower population growth and plays a critical role in demographic
transition. Past and current evidences in Ethiopia however, reveal that many primary school
pupils are leaving the system at early stages. For instance out of 1,107,751 pupils enrolled in
grade one in 1994/95, only 39.1 % of them completed grade four in 1998/99. This wastage is
estimated to be more than Eth. Birr 186,850,423 .00. The 1998 Welfare Monitoring Survey
(WMS) also shows that 19.1 percent of the primary school pupils registered in the academic
year 1996/97 have dropped out. This situation therefore, calls for a study to understand
covariates of primary school pupils attrition and capture policy makers' and planners' attention
to reduce this prevailing dropout problem.
Thi s study uses the 1998 WMS data collected by the Ethiopian Central Statistical Authority.
The data comprises a sample of 22,787 pupils regi stered in primary schools during the
academic year 1996/97.
The study applies the multivariate logistic regresslOn model to identify some mall1
demographic and socio-economic covariates of attrition. It also investigates differentials in
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dropping out of primary schools in Ethiopia, by age, sex, pupil's relationship to the household
head, household size, pupil's marital status, di stance to the nearest primary school, place of
res idence, household head' s educational attainment, pupil's working status, and household
income. Besides, it tries to identify the covariates which most affect dropping out and
establishes the magnitude and direction of the effects. Logistic regression analysis is
appropriate for the prediction of a binary dependent variable as used in the present study.
Preliminary analyses are also made using descriptive statistics.
Six hypotheses regarding primary school pupils attrition were tested in the study. As a result,
age-grade mismatch of the pupil, sex of the pupil, household size, urban rural place of
residence, household income, and pupil 's working status are found to be significant 111
predicting pnmary school pupils attrition 111 Ethiopia. In this study, household Size and
dropping out of primary schools were found to have inverse relationship, contrary to the
general literature.
Although not stated as hypotheses, other covariates included in the study such as, pupil's
relation to the household head, pupil 's marital status, distance from the household to the
nearest primary school, living in some of the regions, and household head's educational
attainment were also found significant. Moreover, marital status of the household head, sex of
the household head and working status of the household head were found to be statistically
insignificant. Pupil 's working status, pupil's marital status and Afar region in this order were
found to be the tlu'ee covariates with the strongest effect on primary school pupils attrition
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PHD