A research to explore the perception of teachers and students to identify the factors leading to trauancy in a male' school and find ways to minimize the issue / Aishath Nirasha Shareef

Abstract

Truancy is a growing and a perpetual concern in all the education sectors for the past decades. 'Truancy influences learning among the students who miss or skip school and this effects the work load of the teachers where they have to re-teach and assess for the students who misses the lesson. Studies have shown that, Truancy is a concern of different countries around the globe. Similarly, truancy has become increasingly alarming in Maldivian schools. Nevertheless, the studies of this research showed that the recently implemented attendance policy by Ministry of Education paved way to decrease the rate of truancy.

The purpose of this research is to identify the factors leading to Truancy among the grade five students of a Male' school and find the strategies to minimize this issue. To find the results, interviews are made on ten participants including live teachers from grade live and five truant students. The interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and analyzed using codes and themes. From this analysis six factors were identified including, family, school, individual, natural, health and electronic media factors. From the findings several ideas were discussed to minimize the issue of truancy including, maintaining good attendance policy, improve the quality of teaching, having counselling sessions for parents and students, rewarding students and creating a positive learning environment. These results shall benefit both the Ministry of Education and stakeholders of schools to minimize truancy in Maldivian school.