Completion, Retention and Drop-out: Measuring Children's Prospects

Abstract

This article discusses the impact of selected factors on the relative chances of children dropping out of school or competing their schooling. The relative importance of age at the time of entry into school, sex, caste, father's education, family income and participation in the midday meal scheme in predicting teh drop-out is analysed through a set of logistic regression models. The importance of the coefficients in predicting the odd ratios for different categories of each predictor are also evaluted. Implications for the management of primary education are then drawn.