Review
of literature related to this study is presented under the following
sub-headings
Conceptual framework
Theoretical framework
Review of empirical studies
Summary of literature review
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Truancy have been conceptualized by
different authors and in different ways. In 1987, Reid wrote “truancy is
disobedience. Children are sent to school. It is the law, that they go there.
If they choose not to go, they are disobeying adult authority, either of their
parents or of the state”. He further stated that truancy can lead to other,
more tangible forms of delinquency. Despite some evidence to the contrary,
there is a common association of truancy with crimes such as theft, criminal
damage, robbery with violence, and abusive conduct.
According to Hornby (1998) “truancy
is the practice of staying away from school without permission” this means that
truancy occurs when a student absents himself from school without due
permission, either from parents or relevant school authorities.
In 1999, Adeyemo defined truancy as
a delinquent act, which occurs when a child often stays away from school
without good reason. Finally, a popular meaning was in 2002 given by carter who
considers truancy as a deliberate absence from school, on the part of the
pupil, for which no reasonable or acceptable excuse is given.
These definitions indicate certain
elements of truancy that must be stressed upon, so as to understand the real
concept of truancy. Those areas of stress are the different forms of truancy. For
instance there are:-
v Habitual truancy
v Occasional truancy
v Causal truancy
Habitual
Truancy
This is the type of truancy that occurs when a student
or pupil absents himself or herself constantly from school without due
knowledge or consent of his parents and school authorities. These group of
students normally miss full day’s of school academic activities. Thus, making
them fall behind other students in their academic records.
Occasional
Truancy
Here, the students do not constantly
and continually absent themselves from school. An instance of this type is a
child, whose mother denies from going to school for one reason or the other
(Ezeani, 2006).
Causal
Truancy
This occurs when a student absents himself from school
by chance. It is not regular; an instance is when students remain in-doors at
the sound of school bell so that they could attend only those lessons which
interest them.
THEORETICAL
FRAMEWORK
Granted that school is good, the reciprocal is never
far behind, that lack of schooling is bad. Thus the popular emphasis on what
bad things children will do out of school.
It may even be that truancy, once
established in a family becomes hereditary. Robins et al (1979) reported that
persistent truants tend to marry each other, as a result tolerate truancy in
their own children.
The meliorists might be wrong in
that the relationship between truancy and the various forms of delinquency may
be one of common effect rather than of cause and effect (Farington 1986). Perhaps
there are some people disposed as children to break windows and as adults to go
on the dole, who are also disposed to stay away from school. But this
hypothesis, if correct, tends not to deny the usefulness of seeking an answer
to the question of why student play truants, but instead to give new grounds
for seeking one.
Great importance also is the
consideration of the cost effect of truancy. The ministry of education is
responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of primary and secondary schools
throughout Ebonyi State. It supplies the finance for teachers’ salaries and
provides other educational finance. Its current spending is based on the
assumption that there will be about two hundred thousand children in the
schools to be taught. Once committed, this money must be spent regardless of
how many children are actually attending the schools, the larger the number of
children absenting themselves from these schools, therefore, the greater the
waste of public resources.
These are some of the reasons why truancy
is a subject thought worth investigating, and has been so thought-of, in
differing degree especially in this very century.