Source: Ministry of Education (2014). School Statistics 2013. Retrieved on April 13th 2015 from http://www.moe.gov.mv/assets/upload/STAT_BOOK_2013.pdf 75. There are higher secondary schools established in all atolls except one. There are 56 schools that offer higher secondary education from a total of 458 schools in the country. Facilities for higher secondary education remain limited due to budgetary and logistical constraints, thus student enrolment was awarded on merit basis.123This is also a consequence of government policy which primarily focused initially on attainment of universal primary education and then development of lower secondary schools while postponing the challenge of higher secondary education for policy consideration at a later date.124 The weakness in education sector and low quality of teaching in secondary schools at the atoll level is a key factor that accounts for skill shortage to continue higher education.125 Enrolment trends for lower and higher secondary 12000 lower Secondary (grade 8‐10) 10000 Higher secondary (grade 11‐12) 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 M F Male' M F Atolls 2008 M F Male' M F Atolls 2009 M F Male' M F Atolls 2010 M F Male' M F Atolls 2011 M F Male' M F Atolls 2012 M F Male' M F Atolls M F Male' 2013 M F Atolls 2014 Source: Ministry of Education (2014). School Statistics 2013. Retrieved on December 17th, 2014 from http://www.moe.gov.mv/assets/upload/STAT_BOOK_2013.pdf 76. MoE maintains school statistics in disaggregated manner and it is published on its website annually. On the contrary, there is no proper system in place to measure indicators such as low attendance and drop‐out rates. Secondary data suggests that school drop‐outs and low attendance are issues that cannot be disregarded. For instance, cases lodged to Juvenile Justice Unit (JJU) revealed that 61 percent of the children in conflict with the law were not attending school while most dropped out of school when they were in grade 7 or 8126. It is also observed that neglect is common among students which discourage them from attending school and it is more common among children from broken families, children living with single parents, children living with relatives as parents are serving prison sentence or children whose parents are into substance abuse.127 There is also a growing concern that, with increase in religious conservatism practices, home based education is sometimes preferred by parents leading to restricting girls’ access to formal education at school.128 77. While low quality of education at all levels remains as a challenge, families continue to migrate to capital city or other islands in search of better educational opportunities.129 Low level of learning outcomes for both primary and secondary, coupled with wide regional disparities indicates serious deficiency in performance of education system.130 For instance, national assessments of learning outcomes at grade 4 and grade 7 show that learning levels are unsatisfactory.131 During this period the pass percentage of students who sat for Ordinary Level exams remained low at a national level, although it has shown improvement to some extent.132 78. School based technical, vocational, and education programs are integrated in the national curriculum framework and a policy guide on conduct of these courses needs to take effect. Students can select vocational subjects from grade 8 onwards, if their aptitudes are more towards skill based Page 20 of 39