Image of the School and Scholar Drop-out

Although the term “school dropout” is new in Algeria, the phenomenon itself is longstanding. It is considered a form of “school wastage”, a major issue in public policy, which has been the subject of numerous studies, including the one conducted by the National Institute for Educational Research (INRE) in 2002, in which we participated. Analysis of the data collected at the time highlighted the determinative role of families’ socio-economic conditions, as well as the distance of schools combined with the lack of transportation in many regions. We demonstrated that school wastage is primarily a social phenomenon.

Since the implementation of the 2003 reform, policymakers have spoken of reducing this wastage, aiming to “ensure that by 2015, 90% of a cohort of first-year primary students reach the fourth year of middle school”.

The provisions of Orientation Law No. 08-04 of 23 January 2008, the Sectoral Development Master Plan for National Education towards 2025, and the Medium-Term Development Plan 2010-2014 of the Ministry of National Education all converge on this objective. It should be noted that by 2013, no prevention or intervention plan had yet been recommended by policymakers. Certainly, a mechanism to combat teacher absenteeism was theoretically established in 2010, but regarding students, a preliminary survey conducted as part of a recently concluded PNR project revealed considerable disparities between institutions.

We are faced with a complex problem, whose determinants are numerous and vary according to individuals and environments. In the literature, the definition of “dropout” is often linked to that of “leaving school”, although the former term is more frequently used for students who have surpassed the age of compulsory schooling. Many authors emphasise the processual nature of the phenomenon, which often manifests as a slow and insidious disengagement from schooling, potentially starting as early as primary school (Bautier, 2003; Bonnéry, 2003).

Dropout represents the culmination of a process of school disengagement (Rumberger & Ah Lin, 2008), resulting from a trajectory marked by failures, personal and/or relational difficulties with both peers and adults. According to Delcourt (1989), school dropout is a gradual process of losing interest in school, arising from the accumulation of internal and external factors within the educational system. It is a slow, progressive process, resulting from personal events (learning, affectivity, personality), school-related factors (educational trajectory, school organisation, relationships with teachers and peers), and familial and socio-cultural factors (living environment, family events, social values).

According to Elisabeth Bautier (2002), dropouts combine family vulnerability with significant academic difficulties. She distinguishes between internal dropouts and those disengaging externally. Internal dropouts, which she terms “cognitive dropout” (affective and psychological), evolve over time and are “the result of an accumulation of difficulties”.

Dropout and leaving school indicate realities that are different yet closely related; they represent ways of leaving school temporarily or permanently without necessarily implying a causal relationship. There is also no consensus on the definition of dropout if it is considered a process linking educational, personal, economic, and social factors. For the educational institution, dropout is merely an extension of absenteeism, whereas for the supervisory administration, it is scarcely distinguishable from abandonment.

Our main question is: why and how does the dropout process begin in compulsory schooling?Other secondary questions will be addressed throughout the course of the project: