Predictors of school reintegration of black women who previously dropped out of school in the North West province of South Africa

Abstract

Despite policies being in place, school re-entry of the girl child after school dropout continues to be low in sub-Saharan Africa.  This paper estimated the school re-entry of girls who dropped out of school and identified the predictors affecting school re-entry. The paper used cross-sectional data on 306 black women who dropped out of school in the North West Province of South Africa and the logistic regression model to analyse the data.  The result shows that only 28.1% of the women returned to school.  School pregnancy, dropping out of school at 17-19 and 20 years of age, perceiving that neighbourhood peers were not in school and residing in rural neighbourhoods, significantly reduced school re-entry.  We conclude that school re-entry after school dropped out is low in the North West province, which calls for programmes to address factors impeding school re-entry of the girl child.