Description
A VET school in the Centre Region of Portugal has created an internal electronic monitoring system to monitor truancy.
Why is this approach useful?
Data collection and analysis can help VET providers and practitioners to answer a fundamental question:
- Which of our students may be at risk of early leaving from education and training?
The earlier these learners are identified, the easier will it be to engage and encourage them to continue their studies.
Why is it a quick win?
A lot of information that is useful to identify learners at risk of early leaving is already available to VET providers. They usually register data on absenteeism, grades and grade repetition. Practitioners also often note information on other aspects such as disruptive behaviour or lack of positive involvement in classroom activities, and have further insights on the learners’ health, well-being and family circumstances.
Organising this information and sharing it among the concerned practitioners – where data protection legislation permits - can be done at a relatively low cost.
How to make this approach successful?
Data related to the risk of early leaving can be useful to VET providers if:
- Information is based on observation and discussions with students.
- Quantitative data (e.g. number of absences) is complemented with qualitative information (e.g. health problems).
- Information is used as a basis for discussions between practitioners and learners, and informs decisions on the appropriate measures to support the learner to continue in education and training.
- The VET provider and staff comply with data protection. For instance, only practitioners working with a certain student should have access to his/her data. Also, more sensitive data should only be accessible to a very restricted group of practitioners.