Abstract
M.Ed.
Truancy, which according to Thompson and Rudolph (1992:513), is
a deliberate absence from school without a valid reason, is a
problem that probably dates back to the initial institution of
large scale formal schooling. Although it may seem obvious that
the reason for truancy is related to the fact that the truant
prefers to be elsewhere, or that he finds the school an
unpleasant place to be, the underlying reasons for truancy are
more difficult to pinpoint.
Research conducted in 1991 and 1992 in the United Kingdom
(O'Keefe, 1994:48), and which included 150 schools, revealed that
a significant number of pupils of compulsory school—going age
become involved in truancy. Statistics reported by the research
team themselves, based on a survey which involved questionnaires,
suggested that if the results of their survey could be
extrapolated to all schools, then a 95 per cent confidence
interval for the mean truancy level in schools, is between 29.7
per cent and 32.4 per cent. About two thirds (68%), of all
schools should have truancy levels between 22.7 per cent and 39.3
per cent, and 96 per cent of all schools should have levels
between 14.4 per cent and 47.4 per cent. If these statistics
could be used as a guide to estimate an average of truants per
school, the enormity of the prevalence of truancy becomes
evident.
According to McWhirter and McWhirter (1993:58), truants tend to
have what is termed a "dropouts perspective". They claim that
dropouts inter alia tend to leave school for the following
reasons:
* a dislike for school, with the opinion that school is boring
and not relevant to their needs
* low academic achievement and poor grades
* poverty, a desire to work full-time, and a need for money, and
* a lack of belonging and a sense that nobody cares about them
Some of these attributes might thus also obtain for many truants.
Paterson (Wardaugh, 1990: 744), proposes two broad categories of
truants, namely the "endangered" truant (also termed the
delinquent or morally endangered truant), and the "fearful"
truant (also termed the school phobic or abused truant). The
"endangered" truant is prone to falling into trouble when absent
from school, while the "fearful" truant wishes to go to school,
but is afraid to do so.
Truancy is also listed by Kapp (1990:119) as one of the
behaviours manifested by juvenile delinquents along with various
other delinquencies such as theft, running away from home, use
and distribution of drugs, burglary, vandalism, assault and
robbery, thus suggesting that truancy is associated with these
misdemeanours. Healy (Tyerman, 1968:10), notes that truancy is
the root of all these misbehaviours, and he described truancy as
"the kindergarten of crime". In 1944 Burt (1944:455) already
referred to truancy as "the first step on the downward stair to
crime".
According to Hersov and Berg (1980:67), truancy is a reliable
predictor of difficulties in later life. They also report that
school truancy significantly predicts four subsequent child
events: being held back in elementary school, dropping out of
high school,leaving the parental home before the age of 18, and
marriage before the age of 18.
Thus, it would appear that the prognosis for truants in terms of
completing their schooling, securing stable employment and
fulfilling responsible citizenship, without being a burden to
their future spouses, families, communities and the state, is
rather uncertain. Against this background, there can be little
argument that the phenomenon of truancy is serious enough to
warrant a counseling programme that will be effective in treating
truants in the light of their problems in such a way that they
will obtain a balanced perspective of the value of regular school
attendance.
In South Africa, the incidence of truancy, in the old racially
biased provincial education schooling system of the House of
Assembly (HOA), could be measured quite accurately, simply by
consulting the class register over a period of time. Through
investigating the circumstances surrounding the absenteeism the
teacher could quite easily determine whether such circumstances
met the criteria for classification of such absentees as truants.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the schools which were
under the jurisdiction of the former Department of Education and
Training (DET), of which the researcher was an employee for a
number of years. Not only were records of attendance not kept
properly in many instances to be able to determine how often a
pupil was absent, but even if attendance records had been kept
properly, the possible reasons for staying away from school, such
as political violence, intimidation, and caring for younger
siblings, do also not meet the criteria for classifying such an
absentee as a truant. What is however also true, is that large
numbers of former DET pupils could have exploited the prevailing
situation at the time and could have stayed away from school for
reasons that may well have qualified them as truants. Many
schools served by the former House of Delegates (HOD), and the
former House of Representatives (HOR), were, maybe, just as
seriously affected by the political climate as the DET schools.
The level of absenteeism related to unrest situations in the
former HOD and HOR schools makes it just as difficult to
distinguish between the "truants" and the "bona fide" absentees
during those turbulent times.
For this reason it was decided to restrict the scope of the
present study to truants in schools which traditionally fell
under the provincial education system of the former House of
Assembly.