SINTOK - At Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), an initiative known as "Komitmen Kedah Mendidik Pelajar Sukses" (KOMPaS) is being carried out with the objective of determining the factors that contribute to student dropouts, particularly among students who are at risk of dropping out.

Professor Dr. Rosna Awang Hashim is in charge of supervising a multi-disciplinary program that includes researchers from the School of Education, the School of Multimedia Technology and Communication, and the School of Computing.

Rosna says the programme is designed to identify the early signs of students dropping out and make recommendations to stakeholders for strategic intervention. The government of Kedah and Yayasan Sime Darby have backed the programme by utilising Artificial Intelligence (AI), and they have provided their support for it.

The initiative got underway in June of the previous year and is scheduled to continue for a total of three years. Prior to carrying out this study, the research team had already visited three districts in this state and conducted interviews with the parties involved, all of whom have a direct impact on the likelihood of a kid showing up to class.

When Bernama recently inquired as to whether or not there was a group of individuals engaged, she responded as follows: "It involves the school administration, class instructors, counsellors, parents, the local community, friends, and youngsters."

She explained that the focus of the study was on secondary school students, namely on those in Forms Three and Four who are contemplating dropping out of school before they finish their education.

In just a few short months, the programme was able to gather some preliminary findings, which were considered as contributing causes in kids dropping out of school, according to Rosna, who is also the head of the Education and Human Development Cluster at the Academy of Professors Malaysia.

She stated that the causes included both internal variables that involved the students themselves and external factors that included intellectual and emotional support from parents or relatives, teachers, the school, and their peers. She noted that the causes encompassed both internal and external components.

"The student's internal factors involve their own attitude, behaviour and interest in going to school, or whether he or she is overly interested in just having fun or playing with gadgets, or they are more interested in working part-time during the pandemic resulting in losing interest in education.”

"External factors such as family background, especially from the B40 group where working parents are too focused on their work until they do not have time to monitor their children, causing them to be demotivated about going to school," she said.

Aside from that, Rosna said that they also discovered that some students would work part-time jobs during the pandemic, such as helping their parents at night markets or working in the paddy fields, which eventually affected their schooling. Rosna's comments came after the discovery that some students would help their parents at night markets.

"They would pounce on every possibility that could lead to financial gain. On the other hand, the money that is made is sadly used on other purposes, such as purchasing a smartphone or playing video games until dawn. The new addiction of the 21st century is video gaming "She wept bitterly.

Rosna stated that based on the preliminary findings, the concern of parents and guardians, support from teachers, and intervention from community representatives were seen as being very important in order to assist a student who is at risk of dropping out of school to continue schooling, or at the very least be able to continue studies in the areas of technical and vocational skills.