Editor,

Refer to Junior Sabena Mutabazi’s article, "School dropout: Do we blame family poverty?” (The New Times, June 26).

Dropping out of school is a phenomenon caused by many factors as mentioned by the writer, but the quality of education should also be underlined as one of the causes. For instance, what would happen if there is no difference between a child who has been in school and the one who has not?

To enroll students in schools is one thing and learning is another thing. Are our kids learning in schools? What is the role of parents? What is the status of family-school partnership? Do we have a concrete tool to measure to what extent our kids have learnt or we are just counting marks awarded to them?

All these should be assessed to find out why children drop out, especially in senior 2 and 5.

Kagaba, Shanghai, China

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This is a very interesting article, and to add to this we can also say that ignorance especially in poor families, drugs, lack of teacher motivation, lower quality education (as mentioned in the article), and lack of community involvement in education—all these are factors.

The Government should improve teachers’ working conditions, invest in nursery schools with the aim of emphasising early childhood education, early literacy and pay regularly—if possible—teachers from nursery schools with advantages such as social security and bank loan facilities.

If we could also reduce child labour cases, dropout rate will decrease and enrolment rate will increase and quality education will be achieved progressively.

Dan Uwayezu, Rwanda