I received an email the other day offering to sell a new curriculum to St. George parish that would "supplement" our confirmation program. The reason for needing this, according to the email, was the fact that vast numbers of children leave the Church after being confirmed because they are not being taught the fullness of the faith. They are bored with the Catholic faith, and lose interest to the point of total abandonment. (Quite sad, but the email's sender presumed that we were failing just like most others.)
This is true in many parishes and dioceses. I am not about to claim that we are perfect, but the statistics you read about parishes losing large numbers of parishioners do not apply to the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter here in these USA and Canada. The statistics that I read said that about 60% of children leave the Church soon after receiving confirmation (be aware, most dioceses give confirmation AFTER first communion and usually around 13 -- 15 years old). They also mention that about 80% of people who convert and join the Church leave after about a year.
Those statistics are a clear testimony that confirmation and "OCIA" programs are doing something wrong. If you make the same recipe year after year and it tastes like garbage every time, it is time to change the recipe! It is not hard to get people hyped up about a "new thing" and convince them to join the group. Keeping them excited about the hype is not as easy. This is why people give up on it. Yes, there are people who fall away in every diocese, but are they doing it regularly, or is it only occasional? There are those who will leave the Church in spite of what we do to keep them (Jesus told us it would happen!), but why are they leaving?
What makes it worse, is when people leave, not in spite of what we do, but because of what we do! Is the current method the very cause of the "disaffiliation" (as they call it) that is being experienced in so many dioceses? I do not know what happens in every diocese or every parish, so I do not have the ability to be definitive, but it certainly appears like they are the cause of their own problems. What exacerbates the entire thing is that they refuse to stop using bad methods, and they come up with "supplementary" programs that only tack on a few more of the same errors (as though more of the same mistake will make it better).
Two wrongs do not make a right. To keep people in the Church they need to be taught rightly; they need to be confronted with the fullness of the truth. They need to be awestruck at the nature of our Triune God. They need to be shown reverence in the liturgy, and not goofiness. Children need to have confirmation before their first communion (the way it was done for the majority of the Church's history). They need to be shown that our faith is not just an option, but absolute necessity for salvation. They need this the first time, not as a supplement; they need this from their youngest years--and from their parents--so that they grow up with it as a natural part of their soul.