Poverty at the core of school drop-out
Date: June 9, 2021

“An important predictor of the future education of children lies in the socio-economic status of the family. If the family is poor, if education is not valued in it, there are smaller chances that the child will acquire a higher level of education.” Representative of the ARISE project partner from Belgrade’s Centre for Education Policy (CEP, http://www.cep.edu.rs/eng), Zaklina Veselinovic, in this article from the newspaper “Danas” (in Serbian language, Siromastvo najveci rizik za prekid skolovanja), discussed the issue of school drop-out in Serbia and the effects of poverty on education.  

She emphasised how the data collection methodology is still flawed and that one should be cautious when making conclusion based on the existing data and notes there is a systemic solution to the problem of drop-out, but it has not yet been fully implemented. And that is, above all, to treat education as a priority of our society, not only declaratively but also essentially, which implies much higher allocations from the budget and inter-sectoral cooperation. She also emphases that we cannot expect from schools to substitute systemic shortcomings if we as a society do not value education and points out the role of teachers and teacher training as one of the keys to success: “Every teacher should understand the contextual and all other factors faced by a child coming from a deprived environment. Also, every teacher should believe and show with his work that education is important both for getting out of poverty and for the overall socio-economic development of the country.”

You can read more abot the state of the art in Serbia regarding equity in eduction in the national report and policy brief available here.