Dropout stats Don’t add up

A recent news report cites education ministry data showing the dropout rate at some English school boards outside Montreal as being among the highest in the province — specifically the Western Quebec School Board at 30 per cent.

However, the WQSB continues to challenge the way the government arrives at its statistics. The education ministry views a dropout as any student who leaves the system without a qualification or diploma in a given year and whose permanent code does not reappear in the following year. This includes anyone from Secondary 1 to 5 who has left the province, returned to an Indigenous band-controlled school, or died. In a 2011 study of its dropouts, the WQSB demonstrated government statistics do not accurately reflect the migration rate of families to Ontario and elsewhere.

For example, between 2005 and 2008, the study found the migration rate for its families was five to eight times higher than the 2.6 per cent put forth by the education ministry. While our report was greeted with interest, to date, the government has not changed its tracking methods.

Out of our 30-per-cent dropout rate in 2013-14, 41.2 per cent of these were Secondary 1 and 2 students, ages 12 and 13. It is unlikely these were dropouts. Each year, the school board contacts (or attempts to contact) every school-leaver from Secondary 3 to 5 to determine whether they have simply left the province or have in fact quit. Invariably, our data does not match government statistics.

We work with our internal data, as that allows us to reach out to the students who have truly disengaged and focus on re-engaging and supporting them in a return to learning. James Shea, chairman, Western Quebec School Board, Gatineau