About half of immigrant youth of Turkish or North-African origin drop out of high school before getting a diploma. The cause is the low social-economic circumstances of the youth, the other language and the late entrance into high school. This is according to a study of the Open Univesity of Brussels.
Less than 20% of boys and less than 25% of girls of Turkish and North-African origin start higher education. By ethnic Belgians that's 57% of boys and 71% of girls.
More than 40% of Turkish and North-African youth begin secondary education after the age of 12, which means they already have a gap to fill.
The researchers pointed out that it's impossible to catch up on such gaps later on.
Source: HLN (Dutch)
3 comments:
It is interesting that even among the Muslim youth more women than men enter higher ed, something that is going on all over the industrialized world (including, apparently, among indigenous Belgians).
I thought American dropout rates were bad, but I think those are even worse except for our most black cities.
Evan,
Yes, it is. I don't have statistics to pull out, but I think in general in the Muslim community in Europe, women have more chance of going on to higher education, as well as of finding a job. During the French Intifada I read interviews of Muslim boys and girls and their attitudes were completely different.
John,
I hadn't thought of that.. and after your comment I looked it up. There isn't "one" statistic that can be looked up, but I did find this:
According to many estimates, today's teenagers are dropping out of school at an alarming rate -- about 30 percent across the board, a statistic that is close to what it was in the 1970s. African-Americans and Latinos drop out at rates around 50 percent. (CNN)
So I'm not sure how much the situation in the US is better than in Belgium.
Post a Comment