Truancy means missing school on a regular basis for no good reason. It is also sometimes called ‘unauthorized absence’. The history of truancy goes back over a hundred years when school attendance was first made compulsory and school officials started to express their concerns over truants as far back as 1870. The issue of truancy has been a major problem ever since 1887, and it is still on the world’s education agenda at all grades. There are two main reasons for truancy: inefficient educational system and family.
To begin with, an educational system which is applied in a country plays a major role in truancy. The education system has been in a perpetual process of change since Industrial Revolution. Since then, various education methods have been tried to increase the rate of attendance at schools. Even so, rote learning and monotonous education are slowly killing pupil’s soul. This system steers students to play truant. In other words, students who are bored with the vain system seek another choice to find out a different path in their schooling.
Secondly, families’ attitude is really important to create a good pupil. Some parents impose pressure on their children. Such parental pressures derive from their ambitions and desire for further success. This is because most education systems in the world are result-oriented, and this increases competition among pupils and families. Thus, a child who is unhappy with his parents’ attitude toward his education search another way to escape from school, that is, he starts playing truant. According to OECD reports, the problems of school, especially low attendance are getting common in every country day by day.
To sum up, inefficient educational system and family are two major reasons for truancy which has been a serious problem since the beginning of the 19th century. In my opinion, we have to realize the power of the counseling system at schools because when we make progress in dealing with this issue, we will be able to raise more peaceful children.