Original scientific paper
Is Extended Compulsory Education Effective in Reducing the Dropout Rates?
Goran MILAS
orcid.org/0000-0002-7202-3338
; Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Zagreb
Ivana FERIĆ
; Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Zagreb
Abstract
The paper presents an analysis of statistical data on various
characteristics of educational systems and educational
efficiency (collected on a sample of 33 European countries,
members or candidate countries to the EU), which was
conducted in order to assess the efficiency of the extended
compulsory education regarding the reduction of dropout
rates. Regression analysis was used to examine if the number
of years of compulsory education could be a relevant
predictor of the dropout rate and of the expected educational
attainment. Additionally, quasi-experimental methodology
was applied to evaluate the effects of the extended
compulsory education on the reduction of dropout rates.
The results of the regression analyses have shown that the
duration of compulsory education, after partializing out the effects of other relevant variables, does not correlate
significantly with the dropout rates. Furthermore, the quasiexperimental
approach to the analysis of the extended
compulsory education could not prove clearly enough the
efficiency of such an intervention. The observed reductions in
the dropout rates could be attributed to a long-term trend or
nonsystematic temporal variations, rather than to the
intervention itself. However, the existing data cannot
substantiate a conclusion of inefficiency of the extended
compulsory education – due to the inability of monitoring the
long-term effects, but only observing the direct ones.
Keywords
school dropout; duration of compulsory education; extended compulsory education
Hrčak ID:
42591
URI
Publication date:
30.10.2009.
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