HNUE JOURNAL OF SCIENCE Educational Sciences, 2021, Volume 66, Issue 5A, pp 57-65 This paper is available online at http://stdb.hnue.edu.vn DOI: 10.18173/2354-1075.2021-0216 THE PREVALENCE RISK OF DROPPING OUT AMONG ETHNIC MINORITY STUDENTS AT MINH QUANG HIGH SCHOOL, CHIEM HOA DISTRICT, TUYEN QUANG PROVINCE Hoang Thi Hai Yen* and Pham Thi Thanh Thuy Faculty of Social Work, Hanoi National University of Education Abstract This paper mentions the prevalence risk of dropping out among ethnic minority students at Minh Quang high school, Chiem Hoa district, Tuyen Quang province The data are collected based on the scale of student engagement in school (SEI) of 234 students in the study area The result shows that 17.9% of students intended to drop out in the previous semesters Besides, the research results also show the relationship and mean difference between the intention to drop out of the students; the signs of risk of dropping out of students with some characteristics of the group of subjects participating in the survey That result has partly portrayed the actual situation of the risk of dropping out of the school of students in the study area in particular and in the ethnic mainority community in general Keywords: the risk of dropping out of school, ethnic minority, ethnic minority students, social work in schools, Chiem Hoa – Tuyen Quang Introduction “Education and training are the leading national policy and the mission of the Party, State and the entire people Investment in education is a development investment, given priority in socio-economic development programs and plans” 1 One of the most important orientations of educational development is to pay attention to the quality and effectiveness of the education system, in which the central and essential task is to increase the enrollment rate, reduce the rate of children dropping out of school at school age, and ensure gender equality in accessing educational services, and not leave any group of children behind However, in reality, ensuring the number of students at all levels is quite difficult, and there are still many children dropping out of school due to various reasons, especially the status of ethnic minority students in general, and the dropout of school of the ethnic minority students at upper high school in particular This problem has posted many challenges to find a solution In fact, there have been many studies in the world and in Vietnam focusing on the problem of middle school dropout of ethnic minority students Authors Robert Balfanz and Nettie Legters (2004) have shown that there are regions with high dropout rates, often concentrated in schools with a large number of ethnic minority students 2 In 2016, the Center for Statistics, The National Education Statistics Office estimates that about percent - about 2.6 million - of the country's 16- to 24-year-olds are not enrolled in high school and not have a high school diploma (McFarland et al 2016) 3 Dropout rate tends to be higher among students from racial or ethnic minority groups, students from lower-income families, and students with a history of Received October 11, 2021 Revised November 4, 2021 Accepted December 5, 2021 Contact Hoang Thi Hai Yen, e-mail address: yenhth@hnue.edu.vn 57 Hoang Thi Hai Yen* and Pham Thi Thanh Thuy academic or behavioral problems (Jimerson et al., 2006) 4 The report Analysis of the situation of Vietnamese children 2016 pointed out: Disability, ethnic minorities and family migration are the main barriers to affect children's school attendance 5 The fact that ethnic minority children not go to school is stated in the report “Children out of school” In which, 2.6% of children aged 5-14 has never attended school while nearly 16% of children aged 5-14 have dropped out of school The proportion of children who go to school and then drop out increases highly with age At the age of 17, the last year of upper high school, the dropout rate of ethnic minority children in some places increased to more than 39% 6 According to data in the survey The Targeted Survey of Children and Women in Vietnam (MICS), the proportion of outof-school children increases with age and education level Between the ages of 11 and 14, the proportion of out-of-school children is around 2.3 - 10.7%, while the average rate of 15 - 17 year old is around 19.2 - 28.6% 7 According to the report of the National Assembly for Ethnic Minority Affairs, although ministries, branches and localities have made great efforts to care for the cause of education in ethnic minority and mountainous areas, the situation of ethnic minority students dropping out of high school is still a dilemma as thousands of high school students across the country drop out of school yearly The fact that ethnic minority students are at risk of dropping out of school causes many consequences for the education development strategy in particular and the socio-economic development strategy in general Therefore, limiting and gradually ending the situation of ethnic minority students dropping out of school and at risk of dropping out are important issues besides improving the quality of education and developing the region's economy Chiem Hoa is a mountainous district in Tuyen Quang province, where a large number of ethnic minorities live Here, the rate of ethnic minority students at risk of dropping out is still quite high, especially in high school students In order to clarify the actual situation of the risk of dropping out of school of ethnic minority students in Chiem Hoa, this article focuses on indepth research on the intention to drop out and the actual situation of students at risk of dropping out of school in Minh Quang High School Content 2.1 Methods 2.1.1 Participants This study is conducted with 234 students studying at Minh Quang High School - Chiem Hoa district - Tuyen Quang province 2.1.2 Research area Minh Quang High School - Chiem Hoa district - Tuyen Quang province 2.1.3 Research methods This research uses a combination of the following methods: secondary research, questionnaire survey, in-depth interview, data processing method using SPSS statistical software version 25.0 Chi-squared test examines the correlation between students' intention to drop out and student characteristics Independent test of mean difference – Samples T Test and One-way ANOVA is applied to examine the average difference between the signs of risk of dropping out of school and the characteristics of the survey subjects, thereby helping to highlight situation of students at risk of dropping out at the study table The criterion to report the correlation in the study is P