Personal, Social, and Cultural Perspectives on Female Secondary School Dropouts in Bangladesh

Christian missionaries started the modern education of women in India and Bengal. After a long journey, women could strengthen their position in education before the partition in 1947. But during the Pakistani period, the advancement of women was somewhat hindered. However, when Bangladesh became independent in 1971, women started coming to educational institutions with a new vigor, which became tremendously visible in the 21st century. Although women achieved equality in secondary education in the second decade of the 21st century, their dropout rate is still alarming. The general purpose of the research work in this regard is to find out the causes of the dropout rate of female students in secondary education in Bangladesh in general and in the context of personal, social, and cultural barriers in particular. Attempts have been made to achieve the goals and objectives of the research by using a mixed-method approach. The results found that personal, social, and cultural issues are equally responsible for female students’ dropping out of secondary education as structural issues. Furthermore, the immediate process of dropping out is child marriage, a socio-cultural disorder. While most studies refer to it as a cause, this study found that it is a process, not a cause. In addition to this, three other factors due to socio-cultural degradation are significant. These are addictions to the virtual world, addiction to illegal affairs (flirting, passion for love, real or purposeful), and addiction to drugs. All the addictions are increasing alarmingly, especially among female students.