Individual patterns of enrolment in primary schools in the Republic of Honduras

Abstract

The Reconstructed Cohort Method is often used to examine the status of national education. However, this method does not account for individual details and we know little about the status of school enrolments by tracking individual students from entrance until dropout or graduation. This study employs the True Cohort Method to analyse data for 1377 children who entered in primary schools in the Republic of Honduras between 1986 and 1994. Findings indicate that children's patterns of enrolment fall into two categories: graduation without repetition and dropout after a short period of attendance. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.

Keywords:

• primary school education
• longitudinal data
• patterns of enrolment
• Honduras

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my appreciation to Professor Tadao Konishi of Hiroshima Bunkyo Women's University for providing great advice and support with this analysis. Also I cordially thank Lic, Zoila Herrera and Ms. Akemi Ashida for all of your cooperation. This study was conducted in part with aid from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (22402054).

Notes

1. The Reconstructed Cohort Method allows researchers to gather enrolment data for each grade, including data for repeaters, for two consecutive years and present this data in the form of a flow diagram.

2. The True Cohort Method involves either a tracer or retrospective study of school records in order to follow the enrolment status of every student in the cohort. This method offers a more accurate picture of repeaters and dropouts in an education system.

3. In this study, ‘enrolment status’ refers to the pattern of a student's involvement with the school system: grade in which registered, pass or failure at the end of the school year, repetition of a grade level, dropping out, transfer to another school, graduation, etc. ‘Entrance’ refers to a child's first entry into school, and ‘attendance’ refers to the child's presence in or absence from school on a day-to-day basis.

4. The final batch of students considered in this study graduated in 2003. The data from 2004 onward will be verified in the future investigation process.

5. This finding was not the result of an error in the year-end grade transcripts. According to the teachers, these students re-registered in the first grade because of the wishes of their guardians or of the students themselves. Similar cases have been reported elsewhere (Marshall, 2003; McGinn et al. 1992).

6. The number obtained by adding all the students who transferred to another school on the flow chart would be 179. However, it was confirmed that 11 of them had returned to the targeted schools.