Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Belgium: 50% of immigrants drop out of high school

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)