Public secondary school dropout and covid-19 in Nyagatare District of Rwanda: do family conflicts matter?

This paper investigates the contribution of family conflicts to public secondary school dropout, especially in the period from 2019 to 2021 in the Nyagatare district of Rwanda. The research was purely qualitative. The qualitative design in this context was to determine the significance of family conflicts on dropouts in public secondary schools. To reach the objective of the study, data were collected from a sample population of three public schools located in Nyagatare District of Rwanda, and the people who live near those three schools, whereby 14 interviews were conducted in total. The sampling followed purposive sampling, where the selected schools are the ones that have the highest level of school dropout among the public schools of the district. The study adopted narrative analysis, which is a qualitative data analysis methodthat emphasizes comprehending the primary narratives derived from the personal stories of a research group. The study found that the major conflicts in the area during the study period were disagreements between spouses and fighting between them. The findings also revealed that family conflicts have major negative effects on children’s education, which therefore in some cases, resulted in their dropping out of school. The study suggests that the government, parents, and school leaders should put more effort into fighting against family conflicts that contribute to children's school dropouts