This alumni study is generously supported by the Sir Ernest Cassel Trust, whose funding makes this research possible.
What causes a student to leave school? The instinctive answer is to place blame on the student, pointing to their disengagement and a lack of motivation to learn. Our recent external evaluation challenges these presumptions directly. Across PEAS schools, PEAS-partner schools, and government schools in Zambia, the picture that emerges is considerably more complicated, and more troubling. Students are not walking away from education, they are being pushed out of it by forces that have little to do with their ambitions, and everything to do with the everyday realities they are living with.
Drawing on what students and out of school young people shared in interviews, alongside our baseline survey data, this blog explores two closely linked questions: why students drop out, and what this means in particular for girls. Whilst the two themes are distinct, they are hard to separate. The barriers that push students out of school don’t affect boys and girls equally, and neither do the costs of leaving school.
Dropout is not a choice
The most consistent finding from our qualitative data is that dropout was overwhelmingly linked to external constraints rather than a lack of motivation or desire to learn. Of the out-of-school youth interviewed, the reasons given for leaving included financial difficulties, pregnancy, and health problems. None described losing interest in school. Rather, they described circumstances that made remaining in school challenging.
This matters because the usual narrative around dropout – that students lose interest, or that families don’t value education enough – doesn’t hold up against the evidence. Of the eight students interviewed who had dropped out who were sampled, seven expressed a desire to return to school, with some indicating genuine regret about having left. Their aspiration for education had not diminished; their access to it had.
The baseline data adds to this picture. 84% of students surveyed who were still in school anticipated financial constraints being the biggest challenge they would face following graduation, pointing to how acutely economic pressure is felt even among students who have not yet dropped out. Additionally, 34% of all students surveyed engage in informal work, and 26% run small businesses whilst still in school. These are not students who are disengaged from economic reality. They are navigating it, often in ways that place considerable strain on their capacity to remain in school.
Family support structures also emerge as a significant factor. Parental or guardian support was cited by 56% of students surveyed as their primary source of support, followed by other family members (17% – 19%[1]). The inverse implication – that students without strong family support networks are at considerably higher risk of dropout – is consistent with the findings from the report. When financial pressure combines with limited family support, students become far more vulnerable to dropping out, regardless of their own aspirations.
The picture, taken together, is one in which dropout is less a decision than a consequence. Students who leave school early are not choosing a different path; they are responding to a series of external shocks that remove the option of staying.
What happens to aspirations after dropout
Amongst students who remain in school, aspirations are specific and career focused. 10 out of 12 in-school students interviewed were able to name concrete career goals such as becoming a teacher, doctor, engineer, and many described a clear pathway: complete secondary school and then progress to college or university. These are structured, forward-looking ambitions grounded in an understanding of what education makes possible.
For out-of-school youth we notice a change in this pattern. After dropping out, goals become less specific and more centred on financial independence and income-generating activity – farming, small business, informal work. This is not the absence of aspiration, but aspiration redirected by necessity, focused on economic survival rather than professional identity.
The data suggests that dropout does not extinguish ambition; it narrows it. Rather than giving up on a future, students who leave school are understandably recalibrating towards one that seems reachable given the constraints they face. The gap between what they once hoped for and what now feels possible, offers one window into the cost of early school exit.
Girls, pregnancy, and the particular shape of dropout risk
Gender was not recorded among interviewed students, which limits the statistical picture. However, three out of six of the out-of-school girls interviewed cited pregnancy as a reason for dropping out of school, pointing to a specific and gendered barrier that shapes the trajectory of girls in school.
Pregnancy-linked dropout removes girls from school at critical moments in their education, often during secondary school when the professional aspirations of in-school students are being formed and consolidated. The shift in goals observed across the dropout group – from career-oriented to income-generating – is likely to be more pronounced for girls who leave because of pregnancy, given that the additional responsibilities of caregiving compound the constraints that already make returning to school difficult.
The baseline data offers important context here. 94% of female students surveyed reported an entrepreneurial interest, compared to 90% of male students. This figure emphasises the ambition within the female student population, and how much is at risk when that ambition is interrupted. Girls are not entering school with lower expectations of themselves. They are encountering barriers within and around it that boys, on average, face less acutely.
The data also shows that 59% of male students surveyed hold leadership positions in schools, compared to 49% of female students. As seen above, this gap does not reflect lower ambition. It points instead to the dynamics within the school environment that make it harder for girls to step into visible leadership roles, even when their underlying drive is at least equal to that of their male peers.
One student’s account from the baseline, drawn from the student profiles, speaks directly to this. She describes school as a place where she developed confidence, gained important skills and, through the girls’ club, learned about puberty and menstrual health in a way that prepared her to face challenges she would not have been equipped to handle otherwise. Her account shows how student development is actively facilitated when schools make structured support possible. For girls who leave school before this development is complete, those supports disappear – often at the very moment they are needed most.
What the data asks of the sector
The findings here do not point to a problem of motivation. They point to a problem of material conditions, structural inequity, and the compounding risks that fall disproportionately on girls. Students who drop out want to be in school. Girls who leave because of pregnancy do so not by choice but rather in response to a circumstance that intersects with existing gendered and economic barriers.
For organisations working in this space, the implication is clear: re-entry programmes are not supplementary. For students, and in particular girls, who have left school due to external constraints, the pathway back needs to exist and be accessible. The aspiration to return is there; 7 out of 8 dropout students expressed it directly in their interviews. The question is whether the systems around them make that return possible.
That is why PEAS operates a dedicated re-entry policy for new mothers in Zambia and Uganda. Students who are expecting are encouraged to attend class for as long as they are able, before applying for a period of leave during which classwork can be made available. Following an agreed period of time, students are supported to return to school with flexible timetabling to accommodate childcare and remedial support where needed. Some PEAS schools also run peer support groups for young mothers, with a teacher assigned to track progress. Re-entry support is important, but it does not address the full challenge. At PEAS, we will continue using data from this evaluation, alongside wider evidence, to strengthen our approach to helping students stay in school and return when they leave.
Future research – both through this evaluation and beyond – could explore how re-entry rates vary by the reason for dropout, and whether organisations working in similar contexts have identified approaches that reduce the pregnancy-to-dropout pipeline specifically. The evidence points to where the pressure points are; fuller understanding of what works at each of them remains an area for further learning.
[1] Siblings were cited at 17.1% and aunties and uncles at 18.9%