AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING AT UNICAMP: UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT DROPOUT ANALYSIS

: Nowadays, dropping out in B.Sc. courses practically occurs in all Universities of the contemporary world. Undergraduate student withdraw could means several losses as, to the student, not to graduate, to the teacher, for not accomplishing his goal as educator, to the university, for not attending its mission, to the society, economic and social losses and also to the family for unfulfilling the dreams. The objective of this research is to present a quantitative study on the dropping out rate in the Agricultural Engineering B.Sc. program (BSAGENG) at State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), seeking to contribute to the understanding of this issue. It has been determined the dropping out rate from 1995 to 2006 based on the university official data, by employing four different methods of calculation. Three of the methods revealed that dropping out rate is very close to the graduation index, i.e., close to 50%. Regardless of the adopted method for the dropping rate estimation and the statistics demonstrating that the agricultural engineering undergraduate course at UNICAMP figures falls within similar courses normality in Brazil, it should be recognized that a public institution of education should be concerned in presenting such figures. A detailed and deep analysis must be outlined in further studies seeking for specific actions aiming to reduce dropping out process.


INTRODUCTION
Undergraduate student dropping out occurs in all higher educational institutions in the world as reported by SILVA FILHO et al (2007). According to BRASIL (1996) dropout is defined as the student definitive leaving from the undergraduate program in which he is enrolled, without graduation. The analysis of its causes is extremely complex due to its association to a number of factors showing individual as well as interrelated contributions to the process. The BSAGENG program offered by the State University of Campinas was officially established in the year of 1975 and initially administrated by the College of Food and Agricultural Engineering, starting in the year of 1976 and from 1985 on by the newly created College of Agricultural Engineering (FEAGRI). Although a qualitative study was not conduced on the student dropout causes in the BSAGENG at UNICAMP, the numbers of graduating students of every year indicates significant parcels of students leaving the course, generating constant concerns in identifying the possible reasons as well as to search for adequate solutions. The objective of this work was to contribute to the understanding of this issue, presenting a quantitative study on the student dropout from 1995 to 2006 and to discuss possible actions toward the reduction of those figures.

METHODOLOGY
From official academic data of the students enrolled in the BSAGENG program from the year of 1995 up to 2006, as provided by the Academic Board of the State University of Campinas, a statistical analysis has been conducted to estimate the course dropout rate. Obtained data allowed to classify dropped out students in the following groups: withdrawing by abandonment of the program (i.e., a student who does not officially enrolled in any discipline without requesting a semester licensing or without the right of licensing or by his own initiative had abandoned his position within the University) or by registration cancellation (student who does not fulfilled academic regulations as required by the University, or at the student request), or transferred (to another course at UNICAMP or to another Institution). As there is no consensus on how to measure the dropout rate in higher educational institutions allowing academic comparisons, in this work it was decided to apply four traditional methodologies to calculate the above referred parameter: 1. Graduation index: it relates the total number of students who graduated in the course program with the total number of entering students since the BSAE program was first offered. The total dropout rate would be the complement of this index, since it measures the number of students who, having entered in a specific course program did not graduate at the end of the time limit established by the university; 2. Annual dropout rate: the relationship between the number of students who leave the course program during the academic year to the total number of students enrolled for the first time in the same period.
3. University standard dropout rate: it is an index employed by UNICAMP, defined as the percentage of students who withdraw from the course program in a given academic year in relation to the total number of students enrolled in the course program at the end of the period under consideration.
4. Unbalanced dropout rate: it relates the number of non-graduated students in a determined academic year with the number of students who had enrolled in the course five years before, i.e., the required graduation time for Brazilian engineering course programs. Figure 1 exhibits the evolution of the number of students who dropout from the BSAGENG in the period of 1995 to 2005, according to the classification adopted by the UNICAMP Academic Board.  1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Year Numer of student Abandon Cancel Transfer Total These numbers indicate that the main dropout reason is not the fulfillment of academic rules as required by the University, or at the student request, but it was caused mainly by their low academic performance in the two initial semesters of the course program. Additionally, transferred students had meant 26% of dropout number and 19% for abandonment.

Graduation index:
Since the total number of students enrolled in the BSAGENG until the year of 2002 was 975 and by the year of 2006 which was the year in which the class of 2002 was expected to graduate, the total number of degrees granted reached the value of 522, it can be stated that the graduation index of the BSAGENG was 53.5% with yielding a dropout rate of 46.5%; Annual dropout rate: Table 1 presents the values of this parameter for the period understood between 1995 and 2006. From the data shown on Table 1, it can be noted that the average annual dropout rate for the period was 41.1%, i.e., from every ten students who joined the course each year, approximately 4 students withdraw at the end of the first year. Table 2 shows the UNICAMP standard dropout rate of the BSAGENG course for the period understood from 1995 to 2006.  Table 2 shows that the standard dropout rate average associated to the period was 9.1%. The value of this parameter for others UNICAMP Undergraduate Programs referring to the period between 1993 and 2003 was 6.5%. Therefore, the dropout rate of the BSAGENG is above the university average. It is stressed out that the university careers exhibiting lower percentage of dropout rate are medicine (0.99%), civil engineering (1.5%), dentistry (l,5%), electrical engineering (1.7%), and those with a higher dropout percentage were: physics (14.3%), mathematics (10.6%) and programs related to Social Sciences (9.3%). Table 3 presents the values of this parameter for the period of 1995 to 2006. The analysis of this parameter shows an average of 46.4%, with an average graduation rate of 53.6%, which is identical to the total dropout rate estimated through the total graduation index. Figures obtained for the BSAGENG are close to the results obtained by INSTITUTO LOBO (2007), which showed that the Brazilian graduation rate of 51% in 2005, with 49% of dropout rate.

Unbalanced dropout rate:
Three of the employed methodologies to estimate the dropout rate showed values for the BSAGENG program very close to the graduation index value, or next to 50%. According to BRAZIL (1996) the factors affecting the student dropout can be classified in three types; first, those related to the student himself, second, those related to course and the institution and finally, the external ones related to socio-cultural as well as economic factors. In the case of Agricultural Engineering, where the largest dropout percentage is related to the student enrollment cancellation by the University, it can be stated that actions intending to take care of the incoming student would have a significant effect on that process. However, the definition of more specific strategies leading to the increase of the graduation rates and reducing dropout rates can only be achieved from further studies aiming to generate a better definition of the prevailing factors in the case of the BSAGENG course program at FEAGRI.

CONCLUSIONS
Regardless of the adopted method to estimate the dropout rate, the statistics showed that the numbers for the BSAGENG course program at UNICAMP are within the normality of similar undergraduate programs in Brazil. However, the institution should be concerned in presenting such numbers. Since the main cause of course dropout is related to the student enrollment cancellation by the University due to student academic performance during the first two semesters, actions directed to support entering students would have a significant effectiveness in that process. A deep cause analysis must be outlined in further studies seeking for specific actions supporting the process reduction.