Teachers' Opinions on Students' Dropping out of Primary and Secondary Music Schools in Croatia

The aim of this research is to establish factors why students abandon music schools in Croatia, as well as to find ways how to help students to continue their music education until the end of the official curriculum. Exploratory quantitative and qualitative research has been conducted by surveying Croatian music school teachers (N=178). For the purpose of this research, a Questionnaire on students' dropping out from music education for music school teachers was designed. The results of the factor analysis indicated a four-factor structure: (1) student, (2) educational context, (3) communication and (4) parents. The results have shown that one teacher loses one student at the age of 10 to 13 during a school year on average. The teachers agreed that the reasons for dropping out lie in students' low motivation and interest, as well as not putting enough effort, low parental support, students' being overloaded by other extracurricular activities, problems of timetable clashes between compulsory and music school, the inflexible music school curriculum, and the lack of parent-teacher cooperation. The teachers have given their suggestions how to help students to persist in their music education, and these suggestions mostly refer to the roles of teachers and parents.