UNDERSTANDING THE CORRELATES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL DROPOUTS IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE: A CROSS SECTIONAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

Universal access and retention in primary education are two major objects through which every nation committed to achieve Education for All which is also central to the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. Universaliation of primary education has remained the decisive component of human development and realisation of the same no doubt will have influence to achieve other Millennium Development Goals. But in the era of globalization and privatization of education, the wastage and drop out of children has been the real challenge in the way of attainment of universalisation of primary education before all the nations, specially the marginalised. In this context, the present paper tries to investigate the extent of wastage and dropout of students at primary level and to find out its correlates for relevant policy prescription in global perspectives. For cross-section analysis, the present study has investigated the data of the year 2013 covering 188 nations world wide collected from Human Development Report 2015, UNDP. The study concludes that policies and programmes should be initiated to curb the effect of negative shocks of dropout like over burdened agricultural engagement, ruthless growth, child labour, excess population etc. Similarly, stimulants compliance to reduced dropout rates like, employment in non-farm sectors, improved purchasing power of parents, women autonomy and gender development, increased use of internet for digital learning etc should be encouraged and addressed properly to reduce the wastage of human resource and achieve the Millennium Development Goals of sustainable human development all over the world.