What is it about?
Student dropout remains a major challenge in education systems worldwide. While many studies focus on student-level risk factors, this review examines how school leadership and management practices influence how institutions respond to students at risk of dropping out. By analysing 32 recent studies, the review shows that effective dropout prevention depends on coordinated leadership, aligned policies, and proactive early intervention systems. The findings highlight that reducing dropout is not only about individual students, but also about how schools are organised and led.
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Why is it important?
Our review shows that student dropout should not be understood only as a student-level problem, but also as an institutional and leadership issue. Four interrelated themes emerged: the use of transformational, instructional and distributed leadership approaches; leadership responses to behavioural and psychosocial risk; data-informed strategies such as early warning systems to address absenteeism and disengagement; and the growing role of adaptive, collaborative and technology-supported practices. These findings are important because they show that effective dropout prevention depends on coordinated leadership, strong institutional capacity and timely intervention to support students at risk.
Perspectives
Working on this review reinforced my view that student dropout is a complex issue that cannot be explained by student factors alone. I hope this article encourages educators, school leaders and researchers to think more carefully about how leadership, school structures and institutional capacity shape student outcomes. More than anything, I hope it helps shift the conversation from seeing dropout as only the student’s problem to strengthening the systems that support them.
Siti Nur Aishah Sumap
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Educational leadership, institutional capacity and student dropout: a systematic literature review, The International Journal of Educational Management, April 2026, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/ijem-01-2026-0108.
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