Catalonia is one of the autonomous communities that loses the most students between the ages of 16 and 17, compared to other autonomous communities and compared to other neighboring countries. They are young people who, being in high school, throw in the towel and do not resume their studies later.
The schooling rate in Catalonia at the age of 17 stood at 86.3% in the 2019-2020 academic year, which means that 13.7% had left high school or had not continued high school or middle school studies after the ESO. Only the Balearic Islands have a lower enrollment rate (83.3%). The majority of communities is above 90%, being 97.5% in the Basque Country and 100% in Navarra.
In the case of Catalonia there are close to 10,000 adolescents a year (9,905), of which half managed to obtain the ESO title. “The most serious thing is that they fall out of our hands while they are in high school†lamented this morning the director of the Jaume Bofill Foundation, Ismael PalacÃn, during the presentation of the study Dropout in 4th ESO. “It is serious because these students, in another educational system, would prosper” he added. “Abandonment is not an individual matter – he concluded – but an educational exclusion”.
The Jaume Bofill study, prepared by Adrián Zancajo and Carlos Bueno, collects in detail the official statistical data for several years of school dropout. Relevant ideas emerge from it. 61% of those who drop out (the term early dropout refers to young people between the ages of 18 and 25 who have not completed a post-compulsory course such as high school or intermediate vocational training) do so in 4th year of ESO, half of them with title in hand. This denotes, in the authors’ opinion, a detachment from learning “which is later very difficult to recover”. “And it’s not the curricula,” warns PalacÃn, “because other educational systems have not changed them and they do not reach these levels.”
Another remarkable fact. Native students present a dropout rate of 10%. On the other hand, students of immigrant origin or at risk of poverty drop out more, as well as those with special needs due to some type of disability. 30% of students who are vulnerable due to their socioeconomic status or immigrant origin throw in the towel (and this is also the case for girls who, in general, have higher school enrollment rates).
Regarding those with some type of disability, 4 out of 10 do not enroll in high school or training cycles, which, in Bofill’s opinion, challenges the system to find more inclusive formulas for continuity, such as flexible high school, specific itineraries or reservation of places.
Among repeaters, 35% drop out. “We know that repetition is not an effective tool and, on the other hand, it can contribute to the disengagement with education,” Zancajo added.
Dropout is also concentrated in a few educational centers. Half of those who drop out are in 25% of Catalan institutes (about 200 in total). In centers of maximum complexity, those that have the most vulnerable students, one in four drop out. “Therefore, it is more difficult for them to have reference points for the transition to a baccalaureate or FP, which normalizes the dropout phenomenon,” says Zancajo. In this sense, he considers that vulnerable students in 1st ESO could be redistributed among several centers, as is already done in P3, as a result of the pact against segregation.
For PalacÃn, the Department of Education must lead the issue of abandonment as a whole, allocating a specific item from its budget now that the economic context is in favor in the sense that collection increases, due to inflation, and the number of students decreases. students, by demographics. “There have never been so many resources in education, so it is feasible to allocate at least 5% to this problem.”
“Without studies, these young people will not be able to have not a job but a life,” he pointed out.
“It is about adapting to these young people and not that young people adapt to the educational system,” he stated. This does not mean, in his opinion, that “the teacher fails” or that “the level is lowered” but that he is the way to accompany them and incorporate them into learning, as is done in other countries.
To do this, specific plans are proposed and selectively providing more resources, as counselors who accompany the trajectory of these young people (what worries them, what problems, what interests or positive references they have) from 1st to 4th year of ESO. And not leaving the municipalities the task of reinstating them once they drop out.
“Sometimes it is not a matter of providing more resources but of hours of work in the department,” Zancajos intervened. Putting counselors in the 70 most complex institutes with high dropout levels, he explained, is a measure that does not have a high cost.
Other possibilities are individualized plans throughout ESO and post-compulsory. And salary scholarships.
Regarding the causes of abandonment, which are not included in this quantitative study, the director of the Bofill recounts demotivation, discipline, complicated family histories, bad economic conditions or bullying.
