Protect students from poorer classes

I am not sure how much 'cash poverty' has to do with the numbers of uneducated children. Some poor children are not in government schools because the 'not-so-poor' parents complain if their children are in the same class as, for instance, those of shoe-makers - shock! horror! It just needs the government to apply pressure - and moral training - to the Head and other teachers to welcome poor children, in accordance with their constitutional right to be educated, face up to snobbish parents (every nation has them!) and demand Management Committees do not cave in when wailing parents ring them up! Good Heads in every country have to protect the poorest pupils from the rest and move heaven and earth to find government and/or private donors so they can afford their uniforms and books.
Whatever excuses are given, I suspect most pupils drop out because of boredom from bad teaching. Girls can cope with boredom better than boys. For them, the alternative to school is staying at home and doing domestic work whereas for the boys, it is having fun in the fields or markets - and probably picking up bad habits and company! Getting rid of bad/boring teachers need not cost money - unless it is for a 'golden handshake' for early retirement! Some consider they have a 'job for life' having 'bought' it or received it for some 'favour'. (Obviously the AL man who was reported as having assaulted a headmaster for not giving him a job assumed that he owed it…) The concept of 'jobs for life' not only encourages incompetence but is lethal in education. Teacher absenteeism and reluctance to take the classes of absent colleagues is the business of internal discipline - as is resistance or rudeness by 'senior' teachers to newly-trained or re-trained teachers who arrive with refreshing new methods that show them up. No wonder it is hard to find Heads. They need a lot of support in the necessary disciplining of teachers, pupils and parents!
We thank God for those in education who are competent and caring and ask, “Why should the others keep their jobs and add to the number of pupils who drop out?”