School Location, School Section and Students' Gender as Predictors to Secondary School Dropout Rate in Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study was undertaken to underscore the extent the variables of school location, students’ gender and school section can predict the rate of drop out of secondary school students. Ex post facto design was adopted and all data on students’ enrollment, retention and completion were collected from available schools’ records for two cohorts of students and covering four sessions using a researcher developed school dropout data collation sheet (SDDCS). The result of the data analyzed show about 19% dropout rates with respect to the predictor variables. However, these rates were found to be non-significant at the dichotomous levels of these variables and regression analyses also show non-significant values in the extent to which the predictor variables relatively and jointly predict the rate of school dropout in Rivers State. This implies that neither school location, gender and even school section has significant effect on the rate of school dropout in Rivers State.

Keywords: school- location, student-gender, school-section, school-dropout, Rivers State