Preventing school failure involves developing an inclusive system where all learners – including those at risk of failure and most vulnerable to exclusion – receive a high-quality education.
Various forces push and pull the learners between the desired outcome of successful completion of secondary education, raised achievement and transition to a stable adulthood and the undesired outcome of school failure. These forces are at play within the individual, the school and the community.
A necessary step for preventing school failure is reducing wider societal inequality, so that every learner starts school without disadvantages. More specific key policy aims in line with this direction include:
- developing strategies to prevent early school leaving;
- targeting low learner outcomes;
- encouraging a whole-school development approach to teaching and learning.
Project findings and outputs from the Preventing School Failure project can be found in the project web area.