According to Adams (1978), when it
comes to analyzing root causes of truancy, there are the wildest divergences of
viewpoints and theories –the effects of a sick society, the abandonment of
religious beliefs and moral values, the consequences of an unjust social and
economic system or even as I have heard it convincingly argued, as a result of
damage done to the nervous system by excess lead in the urban atmosphere in
which many of us are condemned to live and work’. But this divergence is more apparent
than real. Explanations fall under two broad headings. Children play truant
either because their schools are not so well organized in some respects as they
might be, or because the children themselves are ill-equipped to deal with the
normal pressures of schooling. Each of these in turn will be examined. Let us
sub-divide these broad headings into:-
Children
and their Backgrounds
In their introduction to what remains one of the
principal texts on the subject, Hersor and Berg (1980) state with untroubled
confidence that “the epidemiological contributions to this book clearly demonstrate
the importance of age, sex and social background in determining the prevalence
of unjustifiable absence from school.” They added that it is still uncertain to
what extent factors within the school contribute to the problem.
(Tyerman, 1968) elaborated the first
concept of “school phobia”, describing how some children stayed away from
schools that had been used by them and their parents as air raid shelters
during the great war. They associated schooling with fear of death and became
“neurotic’ when compelled to go there.
According to various primary and
secondary teachers interviewed by Farringdon (1980) truants were lazy, lacked
concentration, were restless, were difficult to discipline, did not care about
being a credit to their parents, and were not clean and tidy on their arrival
at school. The above has associated truancy with delinquency. Otherwise,
truants are said to do badly in intelligence tests (Farrington, 1980), to have
low levels of self-esteem (Reid, 1982), and to tend towards unstableness and
uncleanliness (Tyerman, 1968). These authors have gone so far to explain that
children need to be brought up properly at home to deter them from this act.
School
Factors
Carroll in a study carried out in 1999 doubt if children
or their backgrounds can be the sole or even the principal cause of truancy.
Reynolds and Murgatoryd (2000) are careful to show that the schools served” a
relatively homogenous community with very small differences in the social class
composition of the people who live in the catchments areas of the different
schools”.
The study, yet finds that patterns
of deviancy and attendance vary greatly between different schools within this
homogenous catchments area. The suggestion is that the schools themselves play
at least some part in causing these variable rates. Ogunlele (2001) while
quoting Cloward and Ohlin (1961) regarded truancy as a part of a wider
delinquency caused by “blocked opportunity within school. He stated that
working class children begin their school careers reasonably confident about
their aims and ambitions in life. But the middle class bias of school tend to
denigrate these aims and ambitions and to push others in their place that the
children, dislike, but lack the sophistication consciously to examine and
reject. The result is a disaffection with school and its ideals that can result
in delinquency.
The relationships within school,
between teachers and students could be another cause of truancy –Ezekugo 2003.
Sometimes some teachers discriminate among working class or well-to-do students
and the less privileged ones, and this could seriously lead to truancy. Izeogu
(2002) in her own contribution supported the fact by saying that poor
preparation for lessons by teachers, use of abusive words by some teachers,
frequent punishments et c. can contribute to pupils or students staying away
from school. So far, from the facts gathered from the reviewed literature, it
is obvious that generally, school condition, especially regarding social behaviour
in school, contribute to truancy.
Socio-
Economic Situation
In 2002, Mussen states that socio-economic problems
and parent-child relationship could contribute to the delinquent behaviour of
truancy. To support this view (Tyerman, 1968; Farrington, 1980; Reid 1986)
wrote that the backgrounds of truants are believed to be unfortunate. They are
said to come predominantly from poor families, where the father-if actually
present and working –has a job with low earnings and low status and low security.
They live usually in the inner cities, in bad and overcrowded properties
(Galloway, 1980; Tyerman, 1968) there is the tendency for their parents not to
care about punctuality or attendance to homework (Reid, 1986).
Down here, most parents and guardian
are unable to provide the children and wards with basic school needs, therefore
the students take to the market and the closeness of the Eke and Nkwo in
Ezzamgbo; Idokpo and Okwo in Ngbo; Effium and Inikwi in Effium makes it easier
for them to play truants for reasons of making money in order to supplement the
ones provided by their parents or guardian.
Whether- as by the teachers
interviewed by Farrington (1980) we regard truants in a moralistic light, or as
the pitiable victims of circumstance, the conclusions reached by this line of
research are straightforward. If children play truant, it is because they are
for various reasons unable to cope with school. Truancy is their problem; and
any attempt to stop them from playing truant must be concerned with readjusting
them.
Peer
Group Influence
The student’s peer groups and class mates influence
his truant behaviour. A child tends to free himself from dependence and control
of parents and other adults, and falls on peer groups for direction and
control. Members of peer group put aside their personal feelings and follow the
dictates of the peer group in order to remain relevant in their group. Due to
this strong feeling of attachment, peer groups have generally been viewed as
the vehicle through which students learn acts of truancy.
Accordingly, Ubaezuonu (1998) says
that students can easily mess up a dozen friends in school. He maintains that a
child is usually good at the formative age of ten and fourteen years. But when
he enters secondary school, it does not take long for him or her to be corrupted
by his peers. Then, parents begin to wonder if he/she is still the same child
who was enrolled in school few years back.
Dewey (2006) states that the need
for students to conform and be like their fellows may bring the student into
conflict with his own family. The secretive young person is anxious to please
his fellow young men and to maintain prestige in the eyes of his own
generation. This type of act can lead students into abandoning everything they
are supposed to be doing like: maintaining regular and constant attendance to
school and classes, and choosing to move from place to place in search of where
to get money to be like members of his peer group. When this happens, the
student never understands what goes on in class because he is always absent
from school.