Retention of British Pakistani Students in UK Higher Education. An exploration of reasons.

Retention of students in not a new issue. However, it may require new solutions if it is to be made a non-issue. In the United Kingdom, British Pakistani students have some of the highest drop-out rates and yet
little to none research is done on the subject. The purpose of this study is to explore the reasons behind the high drop-out rates of British-Pakistani students in United Kingdom’s Higher Education Institutes (HEIs). The study adopts a quantitative approach by using a questionnaire to investigate the problem. The questions included in the questionnaire stemmed from the literature review conducted; background information of the participants was also inquired about in order to understand and analyse the reasons for the high drop-out rates of British Pakistani students. The findings of the study suggested that British Pakistani students are highly influenced by their families and family backgrounds. This leads to the question that whether HEIs that adopt a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach should actually be adopting a more ‘students as customers’ approach by treating each minority group in an individual sense.