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In this toolkit, you will find an interactive guide that can help you to better understand and address school dropout.

The Zero Dropout Campaign began working with four NGO implementing partners in 2017 to pilot innovative dropout prevention and reintegration strategies in schools. The aim of the pilot was to surface learnings about best practice in dropout prevention. This toolkit is the product of four years of working with our partners and the schools they operate in. It is aimed at public primary and secondary schools in South Africa, to be used by all stakeholders in the education ecosystem as a best practice guide.

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In this toolkit, you will find an interactive guide for using our Early Warning System Excel spreadsheet that uses a traffic light system to show which learners are at high, medium or low risk of dropping out.

School dropout is a serious problem in South Africa. Fortunately, there are ways to prevent dropout if we intentionally monitor the warning signs that learners may show while they are at school.

The Zero Dropout Campaign has designed a straightforward tool that gives educators the power to track warning signs of disengagement, which is a precursor to dropout. Being aware of the warning signs and intentionally tracking them will guide educators to take decisions on the best way to support their learners.

The key aim of the Early Warning System (EWS) is to help educators to prevent dropout.

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In this brochure, we explain why collecting learner-level data is important in the prevention of dropout.

We need to collect detailed and accurate information about our learners that can inform a more attentive and effective education system in which every learner is supported to finish matric. Collecting learner-level data would allow schools to incorporate Early Warning Systems (EWS) that can signal when a learner is at risk of dropping out, triggering the right type of support.

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In this brochure, we explain how school dropout affects everyone, not just the individual leaners and their families.

Leaving school without a matric qualification cuts young people off from many life chances – the chance to participate, to learn, to earn, and to contribute to social and economic life. To help our learners keep a grip on their schooling, South Africa needs a coordinated national dropout prevention plan.

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Download and share on social media

You can do your part to raise awareness about dropout prevention strategies by actively showing support for the cause on social media. We want to change perceptions about why learners drop out so that society does not blame so-called ‘lazy and irresponsible teenagers’ for the high rate of dropout. In fact, dropout comes at the end of a long process of disengagement in which a learner is pushed or pulled away from school, often because of factors beyond their control. We need to catch learners before they drop out by implementing Early Warning Systems (EWS) that trigger the right type of support at the right time.

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Download and share on social media

Tackling dropout in your respective spaces can seem like an insurmountable task if you don’t have the support and buy-in of your peers. To make it easier for you to make a difference and to rally support for the cause, we put together a list of information cards.

These cards can be shared on social media and WhatsApp to raise awareness about the need to intentionally monitor learners for signs of disengagement using the ‘ABCs’ of dropout prevention. These indicators can be used to implement an Early Warning System (EWS) to identify learners that are at risk of dropping out. We are encouraging school communities to join our call for improved data collection and monitoring to prevent dropout. We have made an EWS tool available for use by educators, click Download to access it.

Download the excel spreadsheet

This Excel spreadsheet will allow educators to capture and track information about individual learners, providing them with the evidence needed to call in additional support, whether academic or psychosocial. This Excel spreadsheet uses a traffic light system to show which learners are at high, medium or low risk. It includes space to capture key observations of learner behaviours which have proven to be early indicators of disengagement and dropout.

Dont forget to download and read the interactive instructional guide to help you get the most out of this tool.

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On 28 September 2021, we hosted the very first Zero Dropout Action Summit as a launchpad for change. Our panel of education experts tackled some big questions about dropout prevention, but they did not have time to answer all of the questions posed by those who attended the digital event. If your question wasn’t answered during the event, don’t worry — we tried to answer the remaining questions and you can find those answers here.

Watch the video

The Zero Dropout Action Summit is an urgent, national response to reducing learner dropout. The summit is a launchpad for change, offering a recommended dropout prevention plan and toolkits for all schools. You can watch the recorded event below.