News
Staggering increase in school dropouts in the North
View(s):Loss of income and poverty push parents and children to the extreme
By Chris Kamalendran
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, many schoolchildren between the age of 14 to 16 years in the Northern province have dropped out of school.
In 2020, 485 students in the region had dropped out. The number reduced to105 last year. But this year, the number of school dropouts has sharply risen to 519, so far.
In 2020, the highest number of school dropouts was from Madu (94). Mannar had 72 dropouts, while Kilinochchi had 52. The Kilinochchi North Zonal Education Division had 51 dropouts, while 48 drop outs were reported from Mullaitivu.
Northern Provincial Education Director S. Udayakumar said extreme poverty was the main reason for children dropping out of school.
The economic crisis had resulted in parents losing their livelihoods, so many male students had dropped out to seek odd jobs to support their families, he said.
Many of them even left the province to seek jobs in other areas including Colombo, he added.
Meanwhile, the parents of female students had been seeking partners for them either based in Sri Lanka or overseas, and this had resulted in a rise of underage marriages in the province, officials said.
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