‘My dad can’t pay the bills alone’: teens consider dropping out of high school with the pandemic | Education

Since March, when the school closed due to the pandemic, Danielle has addressed the family’s concerns. The mother had health problems, was absent from work and has not yet received sickness benefits from the INSS. “My father cannot pay all the bills on his own. I thought about being a merchant or working in the kitchen. The financial situation puts a lot of pressure on me, ”he says.

THE G1 publishes reports on school dropouts and their worsening with the pandemic. In the first article, we talked about college dropout and the effects on the labor market

The suspension of face-to-face activities, which completes 6 months in most of the country, and the economic crisis caused by Covid-19 can aggravate an already observed problem: School dropout. Technically, it occurs when a student leaves school and does not return the following school year. The rate tends to increase in 2021 in the opinion of experts.

One reason is breakdown of the bond between students and school. Danielle’s college, for example, did not provide online classes during the pandemic, only exercise booklets. She don’t even know her teachers. “They were on strike at the beginning of the year, so I don’t have direct contact with any of them. The coordination sent an email to clarify the doubts of the article, but no one responds ”, says Danielle.

“As much as I do research on my own, I can’t, I just see that the exercises add up. So, we end up giving up.

Among young Brazilians aged 15 to 17, about 30% of them are not enrolled in high school (20% of them are still in primary school and 10% are out of school), according to the National Survey of Household Samples (Pnad) 2019, carried out by IBGE.

The survey also showed that 48.8% of Brazilians over the age of 25 have not completed high school. The main reason for dropping out of school, mentioned by 39.1% of them, it was the need to work.

“When a young person leaves school, it is very difficult for him to return later. You can find a ‘peak’ and earn your money ”, explains Marlova Noleto, director and representative of UNESCO in Brazil.

“There are young people who feel the need to support themselves, those who already have children and need to pay for them and those who have to help their parents at home,” says Noleto.

And the more years have passed, the more difficulties for the return. “If a student decides to return at 18, but finds companions aged 15, he will not be included in the class. It is a totally conducive context to take him out of his studies again,” says Inês Kisil Miskalo, executive manager of the Ayrton Institute. Senna.

Other possible causes of school dropouts in the pandemic are:

• increase in cases of anxiety and depression;
• increased exposure to domestic violence;
• incidence of the pregnancy In adolescence.

Mother had sequelae from Covid

Nikolas Pimenta, 17, now needs to take care of himself from his mother, who had a serious illness from Covid-19. “She was hospitalized for two months, went into a coma and still has sequelae. Without learning to walk. So I’m available to make lunch and help her go to the bathroom, ”she says.

He is a student at a public school in Belo Horizonte. With the new chores around the house, it’s harder to keep up with distance education.

“The applications no longer work. There is no class, only remote activity, and there is so much to do at home. We don’t learn anymore, we just do a lesson, then I gave up this year. I will not do anything else online. When I return to the classroom, I will resume my studies, ”says Nikolas.

Consequences of circumvention

“The school also offers social-emotional learning. Together with his family, he teaches how to live in society, to concentrate, not to give up on negative results.. To have a young person out of school is to deprive him of his full development, ”says Miskalo, from the Ayrton Senna Institute.

Laura Müller Machado, researcher and teacher at Insper, explains that school dropout has a direct impact on the income of young people. “Since he has no diploma, remuneration tends to be between 20% and 25% lower. Those who study less also they tend to have a lower level of quality of life “, He says.

An investigation by Insper with the Roberto Marinho Foundation indicates that:

• Without finishing high school, the young person must earn R $ 159 thousand less during his career, because it is more difficult to find work and more possibilities to occupy informal activities.
• Average life expectancy can drop from 77.1 years (for those who complete basic education) to 72.7 years (without finishing school). Better pay leads to safer housing and quality health services, for example.
• A 1 percentage point reduction in school dropouts can prevent 550 murders in Brazil by year.

Maysa Feitosa, 17, says the quarantine has further shaken her psychological makeup. “I have had epilepsy since I was 7 years old, due to a surgery that went wrong. I could not develop like the others and I suffer prejudice for that until today, ”says she, who studies in Manaus.

During the period of social isolation, Maysa had more episodes of anxiety epilepsy. “The pandemic affected me a lot. I was creating fear of leaving home. I was thinking of dropping out of school, ”he says.

In Manaus, face-to-face classes resumed in August. With the help of therapy and family, the young woman managed to return to school. “Giving up still comes to mind, because I suffer a lot of bullying; It became more difficult to go outside, there were many crises in the quarantine. But I’m getting better, ”he says.

Luciana Szymanski, professor of the postgraduate degree in educational psychology at PUC-SP, emphasizes that the emotional problems that young people experience are always linked to broader issues, such as the conditions in which they live.

“The adolescent who is poor, who has difficult access to school, will suffer. Think of a person who cannot go to therapy, does not have health insurance, is not served by the public system. She doesn’t feel welcome“He says.” The pandemic brings an economic crisis that increases evasion, inequality, poverty, suicide. ”

Efforts to prevent evasion

Machado, from Insper, highlights the importance of making a active search for absent students and identify the causes of school dropout or school dropout.

Marlova Noleto, from Unesco, adds that the Efforts to prevent dropouts must be coordinated between educational networks, schools, and students’ parents.

In São Gabriel, in Rio Grande do Sul, Laís Lourenço, 17, did not drop out of school because he has the support of his family.

“I don’t understand the material and it only increased my depression. In a few years, I missed a lot of school. I have not given up yet because my mother is a teacher and she won’t let me. And also because, with the wave of unemployment, not having high school can be a hindrance. But it will [de parar de estudar] not missing ”, he says.

Noleto highlights the importance of reducing inequalities to avoid tax evasion. “We need to improve access to distance education, so as not to lose the bond, in addition to maintaining the emotional care of adolescents.”

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