Ensuring Sustainable Development in Africa through Education: A Ghanaian Case Study of Tackling Truancy

Anthony Afful-Broni, Freda Sekyi

University of Education, Winneba, Ghana.

DOI: 10.4236/jss.2014.24035                

Abstract

Effective formal education, beginning from the basic level, is paramount to a nation’s sustainable development; and Ghana strives to ensure an education process that will help it make progress. This study investigates the effects of one of the challenges to this good effort—truancy, on the academic performance of students at the junior high school level and makes recommendations for its management. Primary data were collected by the researchers from 100 respondents through semi-structured interviews and Lickert Scale type of questionnaires with a few fillins. The data were then computed and analyzed using the Statistical Package of Social Sciences version 16.0, and results presented in simple frequencies and tables. Findings from the study showed that there was a relationship between truancy and delinquency and as a result, truant children usually perform poorly in class and grow to become adult social misfits. Absenteeism was generally seen as a motivation for disinterest in formal education. The researchers recommend that it should be mandatory for teachers, agents of change and all other stakeholders of education to provide the needed motivation and logistics necessary for students to be punctual and regular to school to receive the requisite instructions to enhance performance.

Keywords

Educational Leadership and Truancy; Students’ Academic Performance

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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