School Dropouts: Booby-Trapping the Future of a Nation

The Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches Dr. Michel E. Abs delivered this speech at the MECC monthly webinar which was held under the title “School Dropout and Human Dignity”, on Thursday 28 September 2023. This webinar is part of the MECC monthly seminars and comes within the framework of the “Human Dignity Project” - “Dialogue and Social Cohesion-Social Capital Rehabilitation”, which MECC is implementing consecutively.

Dr. Michel E. Abs

Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches

There are two scenes that deeply wound my national pride and my feelings as an educator of several decades.

The first scene involves street children. They swarm around you when you halt at a red light, their pleas intended to prick your conscience. These children, often referred to as beggars, have learned to survive in the harsh environment of the streets. As an educator and an expert in labor and child labor issues, the first and most obvious question I find myself asking is, “Where are your parents, and why aren’t you in school?” which I complete by saying “go to your parents and ask them to enroll you at school”.

For decades, while practicing this preaching, I have received a variety of responses. These children are either pretend they are orphans supporting their siblings, or children of parents incapacitated by illness, or refugees aiding their families, or they have no parents at all. What’s important to note is that these young children have ready-made responses, taught to them by their employers who we see distributing them daily at various points for begging. These employers have done an excellent job indoctrinating these children to respond intelligently and cunningly.

The second scene involves delivery boys, euphemistically referred to as “delivery” in the culture of luxury. A scenario often unfolds where someone rings your interphone, and when you answer to see who’s calling, it’s a boy asking about a neighbor on another floor. When told that his name is written on the interphone box, he replies that he can’t read. This young man must be of adult age because he’s an employee of a company, although some companies may not hesitate to hire minors.

Two everyday scenes succinctly encapsulate the repercussions of school dropouts and ominously hint at a future where society is booby-trapped.

Beyond these spontaneous observations, a more methodical scene unfolds when examining the statistics from our countries’ Ministries of Education or the research conducted by international organizations focused on education. The number of school dropouts in our countries reaches into the millions, and there is no comprehensive solution in sight for this alarming phenomenon, a fact well understood by those versed in educational sciences or statistical projections.

I won’t delve into the presentation and analysis of this phenomenon across our various countries, as the esteemed researchers present will address it more effectively. What I offer instead are my thoughts on this issue.

The existence of school dropouts, in such large numbers, is indicative of a society that is unwell, teetering on the brink of an abyss, and hurtling towards it at an alarming rate.

School dropouts signify a society that has lost its ambition, sacrificing its aspirations at the altar of deprivation and hardship.

When a family disintegrates due to social or economic reasons, the desire for learning diminishes, leading to children dropping out of school, even at primary education levels. The family’s struggles, poverty, inability to finance their children’s education, and even the need for the children to work, all contribute to making school dropout an inevitable outcome, and paradoxically, a means of salvation from poverty.

Parents, worn out by unemployment, poverty, illness, and burdened by debt, lack the energy, mental readiness, and time to focus on their children’s education. Consequently, their children repeatedly fail and become easy targets for dropping out of the education system.

Family instability, whether professional, economic, or even residential, all contribute to children dropping out of school.

What becomes of a student in such circumstances?

Initially, they experience low educational achievement, struggle with academic difficulties, and find it hard to keep up with their peers. Feelings of shame lead to frequent absences from school, and they begin to make excuses to avoid attending. The value of education diminishes, fueled by repeated failures, and leaving school becomes inevitable. This may be preceded by periods of changing schools, under the misconception that the previous school was the source of the student’s problems.

Frequent absences from school may lead the student into the company of bad influences, especially in unstable societies. These influences justify abandoning school and giving up on education, in exchange for a sense of freedom away from school discipline and responsibilities. These peers may introduce school dropouts to work that may start as acceptable but gradually transform into illegitimate and dishonest activities due to the need for money or the desire for greater income.

However, it’s important not to solely blame the student and his family, whose circumstances may be the result of a disjointed society as it happened in the Antiochian Levant. We must also consider the school-related reasons that lead to a student’s aversion to it and the desire to abandon it.

The school may be out of touch with educational progress and may not know how to address or deal with the student body.

The teaching materials, methods of teaching, student management, methods of enforcing attendance, quality of extracurricular activities, competence of the educational body, absence of educational guidance, outdated and ineffective punishment methods, bullying in the classroom and playground, overcrowded classes, and low teacher salaries all contribute to making the school, and the national educational sector management, complicit in school dropouts.

The consequences of school dropout are dire. It is a silent killer, and its effects become apparent when it’s too late to control.

It is a project of waste - wasting time, energy, money, and productivity. It is a means of societal destruction in the long run, resulting in countless social, economic, and other problems. The least of these are the deviations among juveniles and the production of an unqualified and unemployed generation, mired in economic and social marginality.

In addition to this, the system of wealth distribution in society is disrupted, class balance is disturbed, and with it the entire path of social development and balance. This leads to an increase in poverty, which in turn leads to violence and crime.

It is a quagmire that the nation enters and can only escape with a long-term plan that requires huge budgets and sufficient teams that may not be available. This increases the society’s dependence on foreign expertise and aid.

It is the epicenter of decadence and backwardness, which is the fate of helpless peoples. We pray for deliverance from greater calamities, but we must remember that change will not come until we change ourselves.