El abandono escolar temprano¿una cuestión de género? Comparando España y Nepal

Resumen

The dropout studies is a complex educational problem worldwide. All international organizations such as the OECD, the European Union, UNESCO, include among their objectives and development strategies to increase the age of training beyond the compulsory school. The gender differences in dropout rates are very prominent and differentiated in all countries. While in poor countries it is girls who dropout of school very early, in the more developed countries it is boys who play the highest percentages. In this paper, we write about a comparative analysis study of the dropout in compulsory education between Nepal and Spain. The aim was to analyze how the gender affects the dropout and the social implications that this has for both groups in the two countries. For this purpose, official statistics and results obtained in two studies are compared with 79 compulsory secondary students (40 girls and 29 boys) in Spain, and 96 participants (49 men and 47 women, students, teachers and relatives) in Nepal. The results show important gender differences, although with favorable statistical trends towards girls in Spain and very unfavorable in Nepal, but with consequences of labor and social inequality for women in both countries. In Spain girls have better grades and drop less, however, they have less job insertion and occupy fewer highly qualified positions. In Nepal, the dropout rates for girls amount to 48.3% in primary school, despite the financial support received for them to continue studying. ‘Gender’ and in many parts of the country ‘caste’ are dimensions that are ‘affecting literacy inequality’ and consequently inequality in schooling outcome, against government initiatives.