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© Proceedings of the Ruhuna Quality Assurance Sessions 2021 (RUQAS 2021)
st
21 September 2021

Introduction

University dropout is one of the prominent drawbacks that affect institutions of higher education,
individuals, and society as a whole. According to Voelkle and Sander (2018), dropping out of

university without completing the degree has significant ramifications for individuals, institutions of

higher education, and society. Voelkle and Sander (2018) once revealed that deficient teaching and the
lack of assistance at the institutional level have caused potential student dropouts at the preliminary

level. Apart from that, wasted time, private cost, and potential psychological trauma for the individual
generate petrifying effects owing to considerable marginalization and the fallacious interpretation

towards negative labour market outcomes (Ortiz and Dehon, 2013). From the societal point of view,

dropouts hinder another student’s opportunity to become a graduate and correspondingly it wastes tax
resources that have been allocated for the dropout students until the course ends (Voelkle and Sander,

2008).

Even though students who drop out may re-enrol into another institution or field of study, securing
students’ retention has become a major policy concern to avoid counteractive ramifications of dropouts

(Voelkle and Sander, 2008). Therefore, a study was conducted to investigate the nature and major

determinants of university dropout among students in an attempt to design a conceptual model to
accompany appropriate intervention strategies.

The current literature has focused on identifying the internal or external characteristics of students,

which affect university students' dropouts despite considering the pool of aspects related to the

academic, social, economic, and institutional context in broad. This study aims to identify how
personal, academic, institutional, social, and financial factors affect the student’s dropout to address

the desertion of universities based on their justifications. The present study will assist the
administration body of the universities to revise the academic policies to diminish university dropout.

Methodology

The study was mainly designed to investigate the cumulative effect of academic vulnerability, social

isolation, family burdens, and career interests’ affect the trajectory of dropout among undergraduate

students in the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna. The primary data were collected using a
pre-tested Google questionnaire. The random sampling method was utilized and collected data from

thirty undergraduates who left the three-degree programs; BSc in Agricultural Resource Management
& Technology, BSc in Agribusiness Management, and BSc in Green Technology during the last five

years.

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