Identifying causes of lower secondary school dropout in Cambodia: a two-level hierarchical linear model

ABSTRACT

In recent years, the Royal Government of Cambodia has strongly emphasised the issue of school dropout. To date, many Cambodian workers have still not completed at least nine years of basic education due to the high dropout rate. Additionally, a great number of students at the secondary level continue to leave school early. To deal with the high dropout rate, addressing factors influencing dropout is crucial for Cambodia’s educational policy. This correlational study examined what factors might influence dropout from lower secondary schools in rural Cambodia. Twenty lower secondary schools from four rural districts were randomly selected, and 517 seventh graders were followed for an academic year. Due to the nested and hierarchical structure of the data, the current study employed a two-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) for the analyses. Student-, family-, and school-related factors were estimated using the two-level HLM models. The results indicate that grade retention, absenteeism, academic expectations, and private tutoring significantly influenced dropout, whereas family- and school-related factors had no effect on dropout. Practical implications are discussed with the call for solid evidence-based strategies to decrease the dropout rate.

KEYWORDS:

• Dropout
• lower secondary school
• hierarchical linear model
• rural
• Cambodia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).