The growing need to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies in addressing challenges in education sectors of developing countries is undermined by low awareness, limited skill and poor data quality. One particular persisting challenge, which can be addressed by AI, is school dropouts whereby hundreds of thousands of children drop annually in Africa. This article presents a data-driven approach to proactively predict likelihood of dropping from schools and enable effective management of dropouts. The approach is guided by a carefully crafted conceptual framework and new concepts of average absenteeism, current cumulative absenteeism and dropout risk appetite. In this study, a typical scenario of missing quality data is considered and for which synthetic data is generated to enable development of a functioning prediction model using neural network. The results show that, using the proposed approach, the levels of risk of dropping out of schools can be practically determined using data that is largely available in schools. Potentially, the study will inspire further research, encourage deployment of the technologies in real life, and inform processes of formulating or improving policies.
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