A CASE STUDY OF SOME SELECTED SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ESAN SOUTH-EAST LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF EDO STATE
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY
Truancy among students has become a growing problem. It is the act of deliberately missing one or more classes. Globally, truancy has been regarded as a canker worm that has eaten deep into the fabrics of the educational programmed and has caused a lot of setbacks for secondary school students in their educational pursuits (Stoll, 1993; Gesinde, 2004; Adeyemi, 2006; Animasahun, 2007b). It leads to potential delinquent activity, social isolation, or educational failure via suspension, expulsion, or dropping out (Huizinga, Loeber, Thornberry & Cothern, 2000; Huizinga, Loeber & Thorn berry, 1994; Morris, Ehren & Lenz, 1991).
Truancy is any intentional unauthorized or illegal absence from compulsory schooling. It may also refer to students who attend school but do not go to classes.
Truancy is non-school attendance behavior. It is an irregular attendance of school. Truancy is a delinquent and antisocial behavior (Animasahun, 2009). Animasahun (2007a) suggested truancy to be an act of staying off school, which is one of the several kinds of antisocial behavior.
Truancy has been conceptualized as unjustified intentional absence from school (Petegem, 1994). Fogelman and Hibbett (1995) opined that any absence from school without an acceptable reason is truancy.
Gabb (1997) is of the view that a truant student leaves home but does not get to school or escapes from school or class to engage in any other activities that catch up his imaginations. Indeed, it is a type of deviant behavior exhibited by some students in schools without formal permission from the school administration or authority governing the institution.