STRATEGIES FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF TRUANCY AMONG PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN KOGI STATE, NIGERIA.

ABSTRACT

The study was carried out in Ankpa Education Zone of Kogi State. The aim of the study was to determine the strategies for the management of truancy among public secondary school students. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The population of the study consisted of 3382 senior secondary school two (SS 2) students; 4850 secondary school teachers and 6764 parents of SSS 2 students, all from Ankpa Education Zone of Kogi State. The sample size was 600 respondents comprising 120 teachers, 330 students and 150 parents selected using simple random sampling technique. Questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. The questionnaire was subjected to face validation by three experts from the Faculty of Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The overall reliability index of 0.78 determined through Cronbach Alpha was obtained for the reliability of the instrument. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation while Analysis of Variance(ANOVA) was used in testing the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Results of the study revealed that the monitoring devices employed by teachers to manage  truancy are not effective; parents can truancy by providing otheir children with basic needs and care; government can manage truancy by providing schools with basic infrastructural facilities, by sending inspectors to monitor the schools, by making education free at secondary school level and by setting up task force to arrest children of school age  who hawk during school hours, and students can manage truancy by reporting their fellow students who play truant to the school authority and to their parents, by maintaining cordial relationship with their fellow students and by forming anti-truancy groups in the school. Based on the results of the findings, recommendations were made which include: teachers should make use of movement books and pass cards in the classroom; teachers should also make phone calls to the parents of their students to find out the whereabouts of the students; parents should provide their children with basic needs and care; government should provide schools with basic infrastructural facilities and students themselves should form anti-truancy groups in the school.