The Effect Of Truancy On The Academic Performance Of Senior Secondary School Students
[A CASE STUDY OF OGBOMOSO SOUTH, OYO STATE]

According to Akorede, (2013) They become a social menace threatening law and order and channelling the equilibrium of the state. The are the core political mal contents becoming riotous and violent in their reaction to authority and their age-mates who have made some achievements.
    Dittimiya (2001) in his view on the effects of truancy, maintains that truancy among students have greatly affected the development of human resources needed for social and economic transformation of the society. To him, truancy is a destructive and undeserving elements of progress, training or mode of life. It is an impediment to national development.
    Truancy allow students to pervert the whole aim of education, examination and public morality. It does not encourage development rather it retards progress of the school and the entire society.
    According to Durkhein (2010), truancy is a gateway to serious violent and non-violent crime. To him, students truant act lead to stealing, fighting, drug addictions, destruction of property, sex scandal and armed robbery.
    Hence when a student is always absent from class or school environment, what comes to his mind is evil. He plans how to destroy, how to get rich quickly and becomes a millionaire.
In recent times, high percentage of the crime committed are by students of secondary schools.
    According to the related literature reviewed, Huge (2008), it was discovered that most crimes are committed during school period than holidays. Ayoola A.J. (2016) this is because students, who engage in truant behaviour are more busy with their parents and guardians during the holidays. I also discovered that truants due to absence from school academic work usually repeat classes and even when they are repeating, they do not feel better because they feel that they are too big for such a class. Though few of them (truants) manage to struggle through school and majority of them usually drop out of school if some form of interventions are not taken.
    Their level of achievement is generally poor because their emphasis is not on academics. They even see school as a form of punishment and something they are doing not for their sake but to please their parents and guardians. In all, the adverse effects of truancy manifest most when they drop out of school thereby constituting social nuisance as the male will take to armed robbery and the female prostitution, this therefore becomes a problem for the society.
    The peer group and classmates have effects on the students’ truant behaviour. As the child frees himself from dependence and control of parents and other adults, he falls back on peer group, for direction and control.
    Nigerian union of Teacher (2004), members of peer group do put inside their personal feeling and follow the dictates of peer in order to remain in the group. Due to this strong feelings and attachment, peer group has generally been viewed as the vehicle through which students learn truant act. In his speech, Ubaezuonu (1998) said that a boy or a girl can easily mess up a dozen of others of his friends in the school. To him, when a child who is very good (boy or girl) enters secondary school at the formative age of between ten and fourteen years such  would be in school for two or three terms, you start wondering whether it is still your ward. This to him is because he will turn out to be a completely changed child.
    Dewey and Humber (2006) state that, the need for student to conform and be like his peers may bring the student into conflict with his own family. This sensitive young persons is anxious to please his beloved ones and to maintain prestige in the eyes of his own generation. This often lead the students into the act of abandoning everything he is supposed to be doing like attending classes and begin to work from place to place in search of where he will get money to be like his peer groups. When this happens, the students will never understand what is going on in the class because he is always absent from school.
    Also, with the breakthrough in the information communication technology (ICT) which led to the emergence of Internet system in the world wide web. The use of internet system, through very beneficial to students, especially in the areas of research work as it provides them with a medium of interaction with renowned scholars and authors whom they wouldn’t have ordinarily met in their life time. Conversely, Internet system have equally contribute much to the promotion of truancy among secondary school students. This is because most students especially those in secondary school do abandon their lessons to visit internet cafes, thereby spending much of their valuable time and resource only to visit pornographic sites and other sex related sites which will in turn ruin their lives. Thereby, increasing the rate of immoral behaviour among youths in our society.