English abstract
Objective: Education is one of the main foundations for the
child's development and also for national human resource
development. Failure at school and grade retention is a serious
concern among children, and their parents. The characteristics of
school failure in Qatar have not been studied earlier. The aim of
this study is to assess the presence of social, psychological, health
and school related factors that cause school failure.
Methods: All students who had failed their grades and had to be
retained and repeat the year from 35 randomly selected schools
of all grades elementary, intermediate and high school were
included in this study for academic years from 2003 to 2008.
Each student was individually interviewed by a well-trained
school social worker.
Results: The study was performed on a total 699 children who
were classified as school failures. Social reasons include living
with one parent 26.9%, parental divorce (27%) parents showing
no interest in their child's education and school system (41.6%),
low income (19.3%), and smoking (19.6%). Frequent absence from
school was a result in 33.3%; incomplete homework (45.9%) and
teachers identified 63.7% of students to be hyperactive, inattentive
and disruptive in classroom. Most frequent psychological
disorders include examination phobia (68.8%), anxiety (49.4%),
anger (32.5%), fear (43.2%) and learning disability (37.9%). The
most prevalent health disorders included visual disorders (23.5%),
asthma (14.9%), anemia (15.2%), and hearing deficiency (8.2%).
Conclusion: Psychological and health related factors were found
to be more prevalent in students who failed a grade in school.
The primary care pediatrician can play a key role by identifying
students at high risk and providing early intervention.
