COMENIUS CODAC PROJECT PROFILE OF STUDENTS AT RISK AKSARAY AND TURKEY

Dropping out of school  Many students drop out of school after secondary school or high school in Turkey.  This is especially seen in small cities and towns like Aksaray.  There are many reasons for that.  It is tried to be categorized and explained here.

1- Family Reasons  Single parent families are frequently seen in Aksaray  because men go abroad (especially GB, Germany and Russia) for work. They serve as simple, cheap labor force.  Divorced families  Divorce is frequent in Aksaray too. Most of the students live with mother or father.  Children with no parents  Some parents, after divorcing, marry to somebody else and neither mothers nor fathers want these children with their new lifes. So the children are looked after by old grandmothers, etc. Who can’t give adequate care to children  Careless families  these parents have so many children (e.g 7-10 children) so they can’t care them enough.

2- Educational Reasons  Studying is not more charming than finding a job and working. Most students want to start working immediately rather than enduring the difficult and expensive processes of education.  The parents are uneducated. So they are bad role models for them.  They are not glad with the education system which includes so many eliminating exams.

3-Economical Reasons  Families don’t have sufficient financial power to make their children go on studying.  The children have to work to support the family.  (Although the books are given free and there are no school fees in our system, they still don’t want. Because some parents consider the child a labor force rather than a student)

4- Psychological Reasons  Sexual harassment exposed to in childhood  Some children may have undergone a bad experience and they never forget about that  Any psychological trauma  violence, accidents, loss of a family member.. etc. (violence is seen more frequently than the others- especially fathers beat the mother and the children)  Incest  a rarely seen but very effective on child’s life. (especially girls harassed by fathers, uncles and male cousins)

5- Child Brides in Some underdeveloped Regions of Turkey and many Islamic Countries.  This is a scandalous, traumatic and horrible thing which can be seen in some underdeveloped parts in Turkey and some Islamic small countries  In some small regions fathers «sell» their daughters. Fathers force their daughters to marry a man and they get money in turn from the man’s family. This is strictly forbidden in Turkey but people do it in illegal and secret ways. So these girls have to drop out of school very early

6- Role Models  The children is not only grown up by his/her parents. There are many people and factors that influence him/her.  For example the other children in their neighborhood, cousins, uncles, friends,  If the child has a bad role model (somebody dropped school early) he/she is more inclined to resemble her/him.

7-Social Factors  If the child lives in a city in which people generally start working after school and nobody goes on studying, this child will be inclined to behave like that.

8- Personal factors  No interest in studying  Some students just don’t want to study. They don’t care studying. They just don’t like studying,  Lack of confidence  maybe they don’t believe they can achieve something and get high marks

9-School Atmosphere  Some students don’t like the school itself. I may have many reasons: the teachers, exams, classmates, the headmasters, strict school rules.. etc.

 That is all I can think about and observe in schools in Turkey and especially in Aksaray. I hope it will be useful.

MERVE BAYRAKDAR MEHMETÇİK SECONDARY SCHOOL AKSARAY TURKEY