Botswana: Silent Drop Out

Silent dropout is an NGO founded in 2015 by Ms Pearl Unoda Molobe inspired by the training she received from Israel. The training was co-sponsored by UNESCO and the Ministry of Israel. It focused on youth dropouts in schools. Israel’s concern for dropouts urged Ms Molobe to treat school dropouts as a national crisis, to reintegrate dropouts back into education, unleashing their utmost potential. Silent dropouts explain passive learners in schools, who attend school but do not benefit from academic or extramural activities. The silent dropouts are usually spotted by their low morale, bad academic performance, academic passiveness and in extra mural activities, display of poor personal hygiene and in some cases, inconsistent attendance or frequent absence from school. Silent dropout aims to prevent learners from dropping out from school entirely at basic education level by creating a child friendly environment in schools, improve academic performance as well as improve the rapport between teacher-learner; teacher-parent and parent-learner.

Silent dropout designed a training program through 200 teachers from 10 primary schools in the Chobe region and 5 primary schools in the central region have been trained since 2015. Teachers are equipped with skills in dealing with and identifying silent dropouts.Once the learners are identified the teacher then comes up with silent dropout activities with the involvement of the regional office and parents through PTA meetings. Through the Silent Dropout, program teachers become parental figures to the children and get to know their learners beyond the academic spectrum, which helps the teacher, develop ways to help the child academically.

In some instances, silent dropouts have been found to be victims of abuse and so partnership of the NGO with the Ministry of Education was essential. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Israel has been actively highlighting the NGOs work on their website, and this exposure earned the NGO the accolade of best project -globally in 2015. Visible results have been established with school reporting greater involvement by parents in their children’s education as well as a significant decline in dropouts. The program is sustainable and can be replicated because once the teachers are trained they can continue on their own as well as train fellow employees to grow the mandate.

They scooped Position two under Best practice Education category 2018 SADC Gender Protocol@Work Summit.