PERFORMANCE GOAL USE AS RELATED TO SCHOOL DROPOUT INDEXES IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES

Abstract

School dropout is investigated and followed up as performance index in many educational institutions. This article aims at approaching problems and risks related to the use of school dropout indexes as goal to assess institutional performance within the public high educational context, and propose forms to perceive the matter according to the nature of its causes. As for its nature, the research is classified as applied with an approach that is based on the qualitative method. Results attained ensue from the presentation of considerations that allow the following aspects, among others: (a) characterize context differences to analyze higher educational dropout; (b) warn about institutional risks of adopting the dropout index with simplistic premises for its analysis; and (c) propose a form to perceive the dropout matter that identifies and separates factors among controllables and non-controllables. By using the distinctions presented as a base, it can be verified that in order to manage school dropout, the expressiveness of factors that motivate the dropout that are "out of institutional" control need to be initially dimensioned. In view of this, a methodological adjustment of the school dropout index was proposed.