Failures in enrollment controls or undetected dropout risk situations are some of the issues highlighted by TdC auditors, who accuse the previous government of failing to implement their recommendations.
TdC reviewed early school leaving data collection and monitoring systems in 2020, making a series of recommendations to the Department for Education to address shortcomings, but auditors now reveal that “none of the six recommendations made were adopted.”
A subsequent audit report published on TdC’s online page on Tuesday said “no action was taken to address the various deficiencies and deficiencies identified during the audit” and the measures taken by the watchdog. “did not bring the expected effect.”
Problems identified by auditors include the lack of a global strategy to combat school dropout, failures in systems for monitoring enrollment and attendance, or monitoring compliance with compulsory education.
“A global strategy to combat school dropout has not yet been approved,” accuse the auditors, who admit that the previous government implemented a number of programs and measures, even announcing the “School Dropout Strategy” and implementing the “National School Development Programme”. Success”.
However, the TdC criticizes the fact that monitoring and evaluation of measures are carried out “autonomously” and at different intervals, making it impossible to have a “global and comprehensive overview of the fight against abandonment”.
In light of this assessment, TdC concludes that the recommendation was not accepted because there is still no strategy that “includes global monitoring and evaluation of the public policy measures needed at a time when failure rates are on the rise.”
Other recommendations that were not adopted include improving systems for monitoring student enrollment and attendance at schools as a way to prevent dropouts.
Without access to enrollment or birth lists, many schools cannot guarantee that all children will be enrolled, resulting in “poor monitoring” of students when they enter Year 1, according to the report.
Auditors warn of “the risk of school-aged children falling through the cracks” and the danger of them leaving midway undetected.
When changing schools or cycles, “monitoring of compulsory education attendance was maintained but was weakened by non-automated procedures,” the report said, which also cited dropouts hidden due to system failures.
Also, “recording and information collection systems continue to produce errors and do not provide the actual number of failures,” the report says, indicating another “recommendation that was not adopted.”
Auditors believe that abandonment situations recorded or reported to central services are residual, citing “imprecise concept” of abandonment or lack of standardization of procedures in schools as reasons.
This turns out to be another of the recommendations that was not accepted – the definition of the concepts and indicators of “failure” and “risk of failure”. In 2020, auditors warned that there was no uniformity in the concepts, making it difficult to distinguish between abandonment situations and abandonment risk.
More than three years later, auditors believe that “no improvements have been made to the information systems.”
At the end of the 2022/2023 school year, there were 153 dropouts in 661 public schools serving 817,092 students, according to the report, which again refers to “residual cases.”
The auditors believe there is still a need to systematically map dropout rates and the reasons why students leave school early.
The report found that there is a lack of detailed mapping of abandoned sites at the national, regional and local levels. In response, the guardianship stated that measures are being taken to map dropouts and identify students at risk, but the inspectors lack systematic work.
Regarding TdC, there should be more transparency and detail in the budget program, “where the amount allocated to combat refusal is clear.”
Despite the criticism, the report points to Portugal as a European example of reducing dropout rates: while half of students left school early in 1992, the proportion was 13.7% in 2015 and 5.9% in 2021.
The study also refers to the six structural indicators presented in the Eurydice report on combating school dropout, in which Portugal presents positive results on four of them, lacking only the establishment of early warning systems to prevent dropout, as well as vocational education and guidance.
Measures already being taken include preventing bullying and violence, educating and training teachers on the subject, supporting students at risk of dropping out and creating multidisciplinary support groups.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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