We further found that, with exception to gender, the same kinds
of students (older, lower academic achievement, and disadvantaged
family background) were at risk for dropout and mental
health problems. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, even after
controlling for student and family characteristics, mental health
problems are correlated with dropout rates. One standard
deviation increase in the MHT (our measure for mental health
problems) is correlated with an increase of 0.9 percentage points
in dropout. The correlation results were shown to be materially
important.
Although these results are focused on the poor rural sample
schools, the findings still offer insights into the factors that may
contribute to dropout in rural China beyond traditional factors. If
mental health in fact drives dropout rates: mental health problems
may not only be hurting individual kids, but also hurt China’s
development in the long run. While we can only guess at the actual
reason to explain the connection between mental health and
student dropout, one potential reason is that mental health
problems (specifically, learning anxiety) disrupt student abilities
to learn and thrive in the school context. Students with mental
health problems may therefore choose to drop out as a form of
escape.
According to China’s Ministry of Education statistics, in 2012,
there are 33 million junior high students in rural China. If these
results hold true across all of rural China, and if 74% are at risk to
have mental health problems, then 25 million junior high students
in rural China are at risk for mental health problems. As we found
learning anxiety to be the most prevalent mental health problem, it
is likely that 22 million children suffer from some form of learning
anxiety. Most importantly, 3.7 million students in poor rural areas
are dropping out every year before they graduate, and 4.3 million
are dropping out between the time they enter grade 7 and before
they enter grade 9.
If the association between mental health and dropout rates
actually has a causal relationship, mental health problems may be
partially contributing to the substantial dropout problem in rural
schools every year. In other words, perhaps in part as a result of
mental health problems, each year 3.7 million students in rural
areas fail to receive the human capital they need to thrive in and
drive the future Chinese economy.
Given these findings, we recommend that China’s health
and education policy makers consider incorporating mental health
into their agenda. Mental health programs (such as counselors) are
already present in urban schools, but such programs are typically
not available in areas of especial need: poor rural schools. From a
school perspective, if schools really want to deal with drop out,
they might consider focusing on the mental health of their
students in addition to their grades. Indeed, an excessive focus on
grades in the context of a competitive education system may be
driving the high rates of learning anxiety, inadvertently leading to
worse mental health problems and drop out.