ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to find out the influence of truancy on the academic performance of secondary school students in Nsukka local government area, Enugu state. The design of the study was descriptive survey. The target population for the study consisted of thirty one(31) public secondary schools with 18,011 students in NsukkaLocal Government Area of Enugu state. The schools selected for the study were sampled using random sampling techniques. Five public secondary schools out of the thirty one (31) public secondary schools in Nsukka Local Government Area were sampled to give a fair representation of the schools in the local government area. 110 male and 90 female students were selected from the secondary schools in the sample consequently, the students were selected from each of the five (5) sampled public secondary schools hence the sample size of male and female students’ selected is 200. The research made use of a questionnaire for data collection. The instrument was face validated and was subjected to reliability test using t-test to obtain a coefficient of 0.89. Mean score were used to analyze the data collected. One of the findings of this study showed that truancy affected the academic performance of secondary school students negatively to a very high extent. This therefore implies that for students to achieve their educational goals there is need for them to abstain from truancy and absenteeism. This therefore calls for more devotion to teaching profession on the part of the teachers. Finally the study recommended among others that the school authorities should be strict on their rules and regulations, especially as it pertains to school attendance of students and truancy.