European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 24, Number 1 (2011)

Gender Dimensions of Drop out in Basic Education in Pakistan:

A Probit Analysis

Gulbaz Ali Khan

Senior Research Associate at Sustainable Development
Policy Institute, Islamabad, Pakistan
E-mail: Gulbaz@sdpi.org; gulbazali@gmail.com

Muhammad Tahir
Research Assistant at Sustainable Development
Policy Institute, Islamabad
E-mail: tahir@sdpi.org

Syed Asghar Shah

Poverty Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist, Strengthening
Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) Monitoring
Planning & Development Department, Peshawar, Pakistan
E-mail: asgharpcr@gmail.com

Abstract
In this study, we investigate the gender dimensions of the drop out in the basic education in
Pakistan. The gender dimensions were analyzed in the complex socio-economic scenario
hovering around three important environments i.e. home, social and societal influencing the
occurrence of the drop out in the educational system. The results show that all the three
environments collectively impact the drop out incidence in the basic education. Illiterate
mothers, emotionally disturbed children and addiction in family found significant and
negatively impact the drop out incidence and especially for girls. We also found that the
reallocation in monthly expenditures increases the probability of incidence of drop out of
girl child. The school distance and corporal punishment, though significant but reflect the
deviation from existing literature as probability of incidence of drop out of boy is higher
than girl. School fee is insignificant but affect the girl child more than the boy. We also
found that unlawful activities and different type of discriminations also increases the
incidence of dropping out from school

Keywords: Education, Environment, Drop out, Gender discrimination

1. Introduction & Background

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that access to education is a fundamental right of
every individual. In account of this, Pakistan has ratified to international human rights conventions to
increase access to education at the national level. The country is a signatory of international
declarations and agreements upholding equality in access to basic education, including the World
Declaration on Education for All (1990, Jomtien, Thailand) and the Dakar Framework for Action for
EFA (April 2000, Dakar, Senegal).
The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
adopted in 1979 and provided a base for equality between men and women through ensuring the

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women’s access to public and political life and equal access to education, health and employment.
Pakistan has also ratified the ILO Convention 182 and ILO Convention C 138. These are the first of its
kind instruments which incorporates; human rights—civil, social, cultural, economic, political and
social rights for children. Therefore, Pakistan is legally bound to undertake the obligations of the
Convention (by ratifying or acceding to it), and have committed to protecting and ensuring children's
rights and they have agreed to hold themselves accountable for this commitment before the
international community. Therefore, Pakistan is obliged to develop and undertake all actions and
policies in the light of the best interests of the child.
As is the case globally, education in Pakistan is widely considered to be an important tool for
the mobilization of human resources for sustainable socio-economic growth. In order to raise basic
education enrollment figures, reforms have been formulated and implemented to bridge gender
disparity. Though alleviation of gender disparity has been given the top priority in considering not only
in formulation and implementation of education reforms, there still exists a wide gap between male and
female literacy level in certain areas. Moreover, a difference in enrollment between the different
genders has been observed at the level of school education.
Improvement in the quality of education has led to a greater number of enrolled students. This
is a positive example of success; only in education but also in the practical life of the ensuing
generation. However, the alleviation of gender disparity in the social and cultural context requires
special measures to ensure the success and improvement of female education. This would lead to them
contributing to a greater degree in the country’s development. This experience would help to garner the
required developmental momentum and introduce a new practice in implementation of the educational
policy.
Millennium Development Goal (MDG 3) for gender equality and the empowerment of women
is the goal that was set with the earliest date for achievement. The target associated with MDG 3 was
an end to gender disparity in primary and secondary education (Unterhalter, 2006). However, evidence
from around the globe shows that the target has been missed in 94 out of 149 countries (UNESCO,
2005). The failure of countries to make special headway on this MDG is of great concern because this
is against a backdrop of national inclination and availability of requisite resources to bring an equal
number of boys and girls to primary schools.
In the light of international benchmarks, Pakistan’s National Education Policy 2010 states that
the problem of drop-out rates is severe, as it contributes significantly to the number of school children
dropping out every year. Nearly 30 percent children discontinue schooling during the primary level;
some 16 percent after the elementary level; another 16 percent after the secondary level and yet another
16 percent during the higher secondary phase (Ministry of Education, 2007). Those who are most
affected by the inequity of the current education system in Pakistan are rural communities. Female
enrolment rates are well below those of boys in rural areas. It is generally believed that ‘poor’ and
‘illiterate’ communities hold back their daughters from acquiring education due to ‘cultural
constraints’, and enforce traditional domestic roles.
However, the existing gender inequality and factors including lack of financial resources are
crucial to girls’ enrollment. Despite the fact that public sector schools are imparting free of cost
schooling textbooks to masses and catering to the needs of poorer segments of society, however, the
issue for parents is no longer enrollment and free textbooks but it is something which is strongly
connected to their socio-economic status (Andrabi et al, 2008).

1.1. Background
There are several types of discriminations and disparities exists as regards to provision of basic
necessities vis-a-viz facilities to all girls and boys in the country. The discrimination against girls starts
as the child starts to grow older. First, the discrimination starts in the form of nutrition and food and
later in the form of less schooling opportunities as compared to males. Most of the time, disparity in
provision of basic education at the household level become a source of diversion in resources from
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education of girls to boys. Social, cultural and economic reasons also play an important role in high
incidence of drop out at early stages of education. Due to these reasons, Pakistan is experiencing very
high dropout ratios as compared to its regional counterparts. Following table shows province-wise
comparison of dropouts in Pakistan. The province of Punjab is also experiencing high dropout and
never enrollment ratios as compared to other provinces. It is even higher than Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
and Gilgit-Baltistan.

Table 1: Dropout and Never Enrollment Rates

Dropout Never Enrolled Total

National 6.6 13.8 20.4
AJK 4.2 1.1 5.3
Islamabad Capital Territory 2.1 1.0 3.1
Balochistan 6.5 28.6 35.1
Gilgit Baltistan 2.9 3.4 6.3
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 6.1 8.6 14.7
Punjab 7.9 7.5 15.4
Sindh 6.2 25.5 31.7
Source: The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) Pakistan 2010

Pakistan has national and international obligations through constitution1 and international
covenants on free education to all irrespective of gender. At the national level, Pakistan is also a
signatory of Education for All Dakar Framework for Action (2000). To fulfill its objectives, the
Government of Pakistan has developed the National Plan of Action (NPA) on Education for All 2001–
2015. NPA emphasizes upon ensuring access to education for disadvantaged segments of population,
particularly girls and women. The National Education Policy (2010) also envisages removing rural-
urban and gendering disparities to meet MDGs and Education for All (UNDP, 2010).
The Millennium Declaration was adopted by 189 nations at the Millennium Summit in New
York in September 2000. From the actions contained in this declaration, eight Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) were drawn up to respond to the world’s main development challenges.
All 192 United Nations Member States, including Pakistan, have agreed to work towards achieving the
MDGs by 2015. MDG Goal 2, “Achieve universal primary education” is a commitment to achieving
equality in access to primary education for all boys and girls by 2015. The MDG Goal 3 states “gender
equality and the empowerment of women” (UNDP, 2010).
In light of these national and international benchmarks, the government of Pakistan initiated
various reforms at the national as well as provincial level. The overall outcome of these initiatives
remained unsuccessful to achieve basic objectives linked with alleviation of gender disparity at all
levels of schooling. For instance, if access to basic education in Pakistan is analyzed, it can be
observed that there are 146,691 primary schools out of which, 44 percent are schools for boys, 31
percent are schools for girls and the remaining 25 percent are schools with mix enrolment of both boys
and girls. Thus, Pakistan has fewer schools for girls than for boys (AEPAM, 2006-07). It is interesting
to note that in the province of Punjab, there are greater numbers of girls’ schools than boys. However,
the NERs for girls are consistently lower than boys, thereby indicating girls’ have less access to
primary education than boys.
There are also large disparities in the overall as well as provincial literacy rates in Pakistan. The
literacy rates for girls and women are consistently lower than rates for boys and men. In Punjab, the
overall literacy rate is 59 percent. For males it is 70 percent and for females is less than 50 percent.
Thus the difference in the literacy rate of both sexes is more than 20 percent.

1
The 1973 constitution of Pakistan declares that provision of basic education within a minimum possible timeframe to all children of the
age 5-16 years is compulsory and responsibility of the state, remove illiteracy and provide free and compulsory secondary education
within the minimum possible period.
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It may be concluded that the significant disparity in access to education between girls and boys
exist in the country. Pakistan has higher numbers of schools for boys than for girls and school
attendance is much higher for boys than for girls. The net enrolment rate for girls is 52 percent
indicating that that half of girls never attends any school. Most importantly, girls who are enrolled in
the schools, leave education prior to completion of primary or either elementary education. Plethora of
literature is inked on exploring the reasons for high drop rate occurrences at primary education level.
However, there are very few studies to explore reasons for girls drop out at elementary and secondary
level.

2. Literature Review
UNICEF estimates almost 27 million out of going children, out of which 13 million of age 5-9 years.
Out of this, 7 million out of school are girls (SPARC 2004).
Ghuman and Lloyd (2007) conducted a research study on teachers’ absenteeism in Khyber
Pukhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces and concluded that 35% of the teachers in girl schools and 22% of
teachers in boys’ schools found absent. Cahurd and Mingot (1996) tried to explore the connections
between the drop out and learning effects at the primary level. The study sample was based on 8000
students covering 100 schools in Punjab and Khyber Pkuhtunkhwa provinces. The drop out among
girls was higher than boys in all sampled schools. Aged school teachers and their qualification were
contributing factors to drop out.
Kemal and Maqsood (2000) while using the data from Chaurd and Mingot endorsed the earlier
results that teacher qualification and age contribute to the drop out. The drop out in public schools was
higher than the private schools. Holmes (2003) found that overall females receive less education than
males. The girls tend to drop out earlier due to cultural, social and economic reasons. The parents in
rural parts of the country tend to invest less on the girls education due to their early marriages. This
fact is also supported by the World Bank study (1989).
Holmes (2003) concluded that the school distance is not significant variable at primary school
level while school distance is significant for the attendance of both sexes at middle and high level
schooling. Sathar and Llyod (1994) concluded that school distance of 1 Km have significant impacts
on the primary school attendance in rural girls.
Swada and Lokshin (2001) found that school accessibility with the village increase the
enrollment of girls by 18% and reduce the drop out by 16%. They also reported that the father and
mother education is a significant variable at all levels of education except the secondary.
Malik (2002) reported while using the school level data from Sargodha that poverty, lack of
parental & students interest and increase of educational expenses. Bruns, Mingat and Rakotomalala
(2003) found direct and opportunity costs as significant factor disproportionately the girls schooling.
Poor girls from developing countries often complete the primary schooling years.
Bari and Sultana (2011) reiterated the supply side factors that girls’ education is constrained by
multiple impediments including too far away school, associated transportation cost with the far off
school, insecure environment including boundary wall, lack of proper gate and chowkidar, lack of
toilet and drinking water leading to insecurity, and stranger teachers.
Sustainable Development policy institute (SDPI) in collaboration with Human Development
Foundation (HDF) conducted a comprehensive research study on the possible causes of the drop out
associated with the three important environments surrounding the child’s life. SDPI & HDF (2011)
tried to explore the reasons for lack of primary schooling in eight regions of the country. The study
verified the earlier reasons that poor socio-economic status, corporal punishment, teachers’
qualification and behaviour towards children, child labour, school distance, poor investment by parents
and cultural constraints are the significant reasons. A recent report by SDPI & Plan Pakistan has also
verified the results of the earlier results.

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3. Research Methodology
3.1. Conceptualization of the Study
The drop out phenomena is well recorded in the plethora of empirical studies and its relationship is
strongly built with the multi-dimensional socio-economic factors culminating from the society, school
and home environments surrounding the children as a whole. The variables broadly categorized under
three environments are of high importance in terms of its impact on the school going children
compelling them to get out of the formal education system.
Socio-economic variables influence the drop out of students either by influencing the student’s
decision to drop from school or compel parents to withdraw from schooling. These also indirectly
influence through the attendance, academic performance and learning, thus contributing towards
dropping out from schooling.
The gender disparity is another phenomenon which has strong linkages with the drop out in
basic education. The framework shows the coexistence of the drop out with the gender disparity due to
the multi-dimensional socio-economic factors influencing both of them. The complexity of the
phenomena is elucidated through the diagram showing its direct and indirect relationship inter and intra
environment influencing the drop out prevalence.

3.2. Data Collection & Variable Construction

The purpose of the study is to explore the major reasons influencing the drop out in basic education.
The population of the study is spelled out to the students who dropped out from the formal education
system. For meaningful insights, a pool of government, private and non-government schools were
selected across the two districts in the Punjab province. The population of the study includes dropout
children, parents, and teachers. The scope of the survey was extended to seven tehsils in both districts.
A stratified random sampling technique was used in the selection of villages. At the first stage,
villages were identified on the basis of proportional allocation against categories such as high, medium
and low dropout and never enrollment rates. At second stage, out of these sample villages, statistically
significant households were short listed. At third stage, respondents were filtered out with respect to
dropout child household to observe quantitative aspects of the study. District Vehari is comprised of
three tehsiles i.e. Vehari, Burewala and Melsi (see figure 1). On the basis of secondary information on
literacy rates, six (06) union councils were selected, out of which two were urban and four were rural.
Similarly, six (06) union councils were selected from Burewala and Melsi tehsiles. The selection of
schools for the quantitative survey of the research study was done on a random basis. Similarly, district
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Chakwal is comprised of four tehsiles (see figure 2). Six UC were selected from all the four teshiles.
The proportion of urban and rural UCs in teshiles Chakwal & Talagang and Chao Saidan Shah and
Kallar Kahar are equal. In each union council of the tehsil, drop out students (08), parents (08) teachers
(01) were selected randomly.
The total sample size for all respondents was 744 out of which dropout students was 328. Out
of this, 171 and 157 dropouts were selected from Vehari and Chakwal districts respectively. These
respondents were subdivided into regional classification on proportional allocation basis. Total sample
size of teachers was 88, out of which 30 and 58 were selected from Vehari and Chakwal districts. The
scope of schools was primary, middle and secondary schools operational under the government, private
and non-government sector.

Table 2: Total Sample Size

Respondents Total Sample Size

Dropout 328
Parents 328
Teachers 88
Total 744

Multiple questionnaires were used in acquiring information from different respondents from the
field. The design does not only include quantitative information, but it also captures in depth
information from several stakeholders. This is not a case study based research, which only captures
perceptions of the respondents in a specific way which may not be generalized. There were many
respondents interviewed in the field to capture multiple responses to investigate the reasons for gender
disparity.
Comprehensive questionnaires based on structured questions were developed for each target
group. The target groups for dropout part of the study were dropout child, parents of a dropout child
and school teachers. Each questionnaire was divided in several sections to gather general information
to specific information pertaining to prime causes of dropout. In addition to making each of the
procedures as operational as possible, a pre-test of instruments was conducted in districts, Vehari and
Chakwal. Based upon pre-test results, questionnaires were improved and some unnecessary content
was removed.
The data for the study was captured from different sources by using different instruments. This
raw data was categorized into data files. The student, parent, and teacher questionnaires were coded
and entered in the SPSS computer programme. An econometric analysis was performed in SPSS
computer programme. A plethora of evidence is available in shape of descriptive analysis, while this
study tries to explore and verify the reasons by applying appropriate econometric techniques.

Table 3: Variable Construction

Variable
Illiterate Mother
Distance From School
Problem in way to school
Level of Parents Help
Teacher’s Complains
Emotional Disturbance
Family Problems
Detail
Illiterate Mother =1 if Mother is illiterate
Illiterate Mother=0 otherwise
Distance From School=1 if distance is less 1 KM
Distance From School=0 otherwise
Problem in way to school=1, if child face any problem on the way to school
Problem in way to school=0, otherwise
Teacher’s Complains=1, if child complain his/her teacher
Teacher’s Complains=0, otherwise
Emotional Disturbance=1 if child has emotional disturbance problem
Emotional Disturbance=0 otherwise
Family Problems=1, if there is a problem in family

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Table 3: Variable Construction - continued

Family Problems=0, otherwise

Unlawful Act=1, if child in involved in unlawful activates
Unlawful Act
Unlawful Act=0, otherwise
Economic Discrimination Economic Discrimination=1
Religious Discrimination=1, if family is discriminated on religious bases
Religious Discrimination
Religious Discrimination=0, otherwise
Family Background Discrimination=1, if family is discriminated on it
Family Background Discrimination background bases
Family Background Discrimination=0, otherwise
Corporal Punishment=1, if child receive punishment
Corporal Punishment
Corporal Punishment=0, otherwise
Child Interest=1, if child takes interest in his studies
Child Interest
Child Interest=0, otherwise
Parents Disability=1, if any of the parent is disable
Parents Disability
Parents Disability=0, otherwise
Family Addiction=1, if any family member involves in any type of addiction
Family Addiction
Family Addiction=0, otherwise
Child Labor=1, if child earns
Child Labor
Child Labor=0, otherwise
Burewala=1, if Tehsil is Burewala
Burewala
Burewala=0, otherwise
Chakwal=1, if Tehsil is Chakwal
Chakwal
Chakwal=0, otherwise
Choa Sadan Shah= 1, if tehsil is Choa Sadan Shah
Choa Sadan Shah
Choa Sadan Shah= 0, otherwise
Kallar Kahar=1 , if tehsil is Kallar Kahar
Kallar Kahar
Kallar Kahar=0, otherwise
Melsi=1, if tehsil is Malsi
Melsi
Melsi=0, otherwise
Vehari=1, if tehsil is Vehari
Vehari
Vehari=0, otherwise

3.3. Model Specification

To determine the plausible reasons of drop out attached with the three environments, a dummy variable
is introduced which takes one if child is male drop out or otherwise. The probit model is applied due to
the dichotomous nature of the dependent variable (explanation is given in annex). Generally, it takes
the following specification:
Prob (HDij=1) = f (Hij, Sij, Tij)
Where
HDij = Drop out, HDi=1, if the child is male dropped out prior to completing the schooling, else
HDi=0, this is the dependent variable.
Hij refers to a set of home environment variables, Sij and Tij refers to a set of social and school
environment variables respectively.

4. Results and Discussion

The study has estimated the gender differences in the drop out students in the basic education in
Pakistan. In order to analyze the detailed factors associated with the most prevalent phenomena, the
interest variables are categorized in three environments, home, school and societal. Separate probit
analysis is conducted for male and female students. Tehsil level dummies were introduced to control
the heterogeneity across the tehsils due to variant dynamics. Table 4.0 reports the results of the probit
model. The likelihood ratio test shows that over all models are significant at 1% level of significance.
The value of Pseudo-R-square is 0.1267, which is slightly low as our data set has 80% dummies
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variables. However, Maddala (1983) has emphasized on economic and statistical significance of
explanatory variables as compared to explanatory power of the model. The prediction power of our
model is 64.33% which shows that models are correctly predicted.

Table 4: Results

Variable Coefficient Standard Error Marginal Fixed Effect

Home Environment
Illiterate Mother * 0.385256 0.1822432 0.1516813
Total Earning Members 0.0033867 0.0851914 0.0013503
Monthly Expenditure** -0.0345 0.0197 -0.0137
Parents Help 0.0476543 0.0406207 0.0189999
Avg. Expenditure Per Child* 0.0000445 0.0000212 0.0000177
Emotional_~b* -0.4414374 0.224574 -0.1716751
Family_prob 0.0172144 0.1653727 0.0068635
Child Interest -0.2019147 0.2005936 -0.0800313
Parents Disability 0.260342 0.2872532 0.1032744
Family Addiction 0.312529 0.2180049 0.1232718
Child Labor -0.1202664 0.3616781 -0.0478012
Child Earnings -0.0000151 0.0000728 -6.01E-06
School Environment
Distance From School* 0.5505128 0.164221 0.2166012
Prob_shclway 0.1049112 0.292146 0.0418326
Corporal Punishment*** 0.2384487 0.1523467 0.0948358
Fee amount -0.0004722 0.0004274 -0.0001883
Teacher’s Complains*** -0.2641653 0.1791836 -0.104586
Societal Environment
Unlawful Act** 0.3943451 0.2411069 0.1556617
Economic Discrimination* -0.3388733 0.1733075 -0.133858
Religious Discrimination* 1.540099 0.6292518 0.4589445
Family Background Discrimination*** -0.5425138 0.3671924 -0.2060907
Social Exclusion 0.2415336 0.2988738 0.0958907
Tehsil Level Controls
Burewala -0.5806434 0.3214601 -0.223261
Chakwal -0.254039 0.2954532 -0.1002501
Choa Sadan Shah -0.0072956 0.3320345 -0.0029085
Kallar Kahar -0.0434852 0.3082017 -0.0173238
Malsi -0.0516259 0.3215641 -0.0205643
Vehari -0.2346257 0.3043652 -0.0928582
_cons -0.6462053 0.421347
Number of Observations 328
Likelihood ratio test chi2 57.69
P-value of chi2 0.0012
Pseudo-R-square 0.1267
* Significant at 5% significant level,
** Significant at 10% significant level,
*** Significant at 15% significant level

4.1. Home Environment

Illiterate mother has significant impact on the child drop out and the probability of being dropped out
associated with illiterate mother is 15% higher in male as compared to female. In our sample more than
70% of the mothers are illiterate. This shows how a female household education is important for the
whole family. It is found in the literature that household head and especially female head education has
strong positive implications on the education of both sons and daughters2. It is believed that high
household size is also one of the indicators of high earnings due to indulgence of members in earning

2
Lokshin et. al. 2000
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activities. Results show that total number of earning members has no impact as rural households have
only subsistence earnings. Recent studies by SDPI, HDF and Plan Pakistan (2011) verified the study
results as the illiterate mothers increase the probability of being drop out and especially for girls. Bari
and Sultana (2011) and Bilqees and Najam (2004) also reported the illiteracy as one of the key factors
for dropping out from schools.
Monthly household expenditure is taken as one of the cost indicators to determine the gender
disparity among the drop outs. Results show that the monthly expenditure has significant impact on
dropout child when the household expenditures increase by Rs.1000/-, the probability of female child
getting out of school is 1.3% higher than male child. Similarly, the rise in average expenditure per
child results in more drop out and the probability of being drop out for female child and male is almost
equal. Financial aspects of rural households are critical for education. Our data shows that most of the
household’s way of earning is daily wage labor. So, increase in their expenditure due to any reason will
result in more dropout and child labor. Earlier studies Ahamd (1990) and Burki and Shahnaz (2002:11)
on Pakistan explained that sons are always preferred over daughters in our society due to their
conventional role of chief bread winner. Zohra, Iqbal and Asad (2011) endorsed the study results as the
parents do not want to spend their household income on girls’ education.
Emotional trauma and addiction in family has significant impact on child dropout. The
probability of dropout, being an emotionally disturbed child is 17% higher in female child as compared
to male child. Addiction in family has severe impact on male child and his probability of being dropped
out when a family member involves in any type of addiction is 12% higher as compared to female
child. Family environment with psychological pressure and addiction habit leads to more dropouts
from schools. Parental disability is less in this area and has no significant impact on the child’s
dropout; similarly parental help and child personal interest in study are also insignificant. It implies
that children who take interest in their studies and their parents also help them out in their study at
home; their probability of dropout is very low. Although, the study results are insignificant, but it
verifies the recent trends by Zohra, Iqbal and Asad (2011) as the child personal interest is one of the
causes of girls’ drop out. Our results reveal that home environment accompanied by financial
constraints can be the reasons of increasing number of dropout children and especially female children.

Table 5: Probit model for gender

Probit model for gender

Classified D ~D Total
+ 101 58 159
- 59 110 169
Total 160 168 328
Classified + if predicted Pr(D) >= .5
True D defined as gender != 0
Sensitivity Pr( + D) 63.13%
Specificity Pr( -~D) 65.48%
Positive predictive value Pr( D +) 63.52%
Negative predictive value Pr(~D -) 65.09%
False + rate for true ~D Pr( +~D) 34.52%
False - rate for true D Pr( - D) 36.88%
False + rate for classified + Pr(~D +) 36.48%
False - rate for classified - Pr( D -) 34.91%
Correctly classified 64.33%

4.2. School Environment

A school environment with affectionate teachers and good facilities at school always encourage the
child to take interest in his/her studies. Distance from school, corporal punishment and teachers’ over
all behavior has significant impact on the dropout. Even for the schools located in a distance of 1.5KM,
the probability of dropout for male is 22% higher in male. The reason is pretty simple; their parents
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don’t have enough resource to arrange transport facility for them. Sathar and Lloyd (1994) reported
that schools within the one KM range can decrease the probability of drop out and especially girls in
rural areas. Swada and Lokshin (2001) also estimated the enrollment increase due to presence of
primary schools in their village. So, the availability of public school in the locality/village can decrease
the probability of dropout child and especially the girl.
Corporal punishment and teacher complaints variables are not highly statistically significant.
The impact of corporal punishment is higher in male dropout child while the teacher bad behavior is
significant in female dropout child. Corporal punishment increases the probability of dropout by 9%
higher in male child as compared to female. On other hand, being a teacher behaving badly to student
increases the probability of dropout by 10% higher in female dropout child as compared to male
dropout child. Similarly, the school fee amount is statistically insignificant but the probability of
female child is higher than the male. It really endorses our earlier results that the reallocation in
household expenditure may increase the probability of the dropping out of female child.

4.3. Societal Environment

More protective and conducive communal environment encourages parents to send their children to
school, especially female children. The study results show that the presence of unlawful activities in
community has significant impact on a child’s drop out, presence of unlawful activities increase the
probability of male child drop out by 15%. In certain communities people face various type of
discrimination like religious, social and economical discrimination. These discriminations have a
significant impact on child’s education belonging to discriminated family. The results show a presence
of these discriminations and their impact on child’s education. Religious and economic discrimination
have very significant impact. The severity of economic discrimination is more in male dropout child
while religious is in female dropout child. If a child belongs to an economically discriminated family
then the probability of dropout is 13% higher in female child, similarly a child belonging to religiously
discriminated family increase the probability of male child dropout by 45%. Discrimination on the
basis of family background has statistically less significant impact and its impact is higher in female
child dropout. SDPI, HDF and Plan Pakistan (2011) also endorsed the facts that illegal activities,
economic, religious and family discrimination play an important role in discontinuing the child studies.

5. Conclusion
Concluding the above discussion, home environment, school environment and social environment have
their impact on increasing ratio of dropout children, especially on female dropout. There is daring need
to take certain steps on community and government level to check this increasing rate of dropout.
Family financial constraints along with large family size always results in family problems which
affect the child’s mental grooming. The study has observed that emotional disorder is one of the key
reasons in child’s dropout. Similarly addiction in family and increase in unlawful activities has worst
impact on child’s education. There is need to aware the community that their bad habits and family
problems are not only affecting their lives but also darkening the future of their children.
Corporal punishment and bad behavior of the teachers has also worst impact on education in
our study areas. Educational manager and other monitoring staff should check these activities. The
other factor which is playing a crucial role in school environment is the distance from school. Presence
of school in the community increases the probability of child’s school attendance, especially in the case
of female child. Government must initiate a program to start community level schools in these areas.
Discrimination in any kind and at any level affects the building up of an organized community.
Denying the access right of certain services on the bases of religion, caste and family background
creates hatred in the society and has serious outcomes. As we have seen that these discriminations are
present in education system of our study area and have worst impact in the form of more dropouts from
school.
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References
[1] A.R., Kemal and A.M., Ahmed, 2002. “An Analysis of Dropout of Primary School Students in
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[3] B., Baluch and S., Shahid, 2009. “Measuring gender disparity at primary school in Pakistan”.
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[4] E., Unterhalter, 2006. “Measuring Gender Inequality in Education in South Asia,” (Girls Too)
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[8] J., Holmes, 2003. “Measuring the Determinants of School Completion in Pakistan: Analysis of
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Vol. 2(6), pp.646-648.

Model Specification
The functional form of this binary response model is
(1)
For any real value the function G (.) takes on value between 0 and 1. Unlike to LPM model
this functional form ensures the probability values to lie in 0-1 range. The normal cumulative
distributive functional form of probit model is give below

(2)
Where, is standard normal density function.

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(3)
The probit model is derived from latent variable model that satisfies all assumptions of classical
linear model. Let be the latent variable determined by
(4)
We introduce the notation to define a binary outcome. The function is called the
indicator function, which takes on the value one if the event is true, and zero otherwise.
Therefore, is one if , and y is zero if . We assume that e is independent of x and that
has standard normal distribution. In either case, is symmetrically distributed about zero, which
means that for all real numbers z.
From equation-4 we can derive the response probability for .
(5)

The above equation explains the effects of on response probability. It doesn’t provide
marginal effect, it only tells about the direction of change. Partial effects on with a
unit change in can be obtained by following equation

(6)
G is a cumulative distribution function of a random variable; g is a probability density function.
In probit, is a strictly increasing cdf and also for all . Therefore, the partial effect of
on has impact through a positive factor , which implies that partial effect
has same direction as .
Let be the dummy variable then partial effect from 0 to 1, keeping all other factor fixed
(7)
Due to non-linear form of , ordinarily least Square (OLS) and Weighted Least Square
(WLS) are not applicable. For estimating limited dependent variable model, maximum likelihood
technique is used. To obtain maximum likelihood, there is need to specify a density function of
given .
(8)
When we get and when then we have . The log likelihood
function for observation is a function of the parameters and the data and is obtained by taking
log of equation-8
(9)
As is strictly between zero and one, log likelihhod function of probilt model is well
defined for all values of
The log likelihood for sample size n is obtained by summing equation-8 across all observation:

. The estimator maximizes the log-likelihood function. Computation of this

likelihood function is done by using STATA software.

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Figure 1: District Vehari Sampling Plan

Figure 2: District Chakwal Sampling Plan

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