Truancy among Iban students in SMK Luar Bandar Sibu and suggestions on how the problem could be overcome: a case study

Radin, Tedong (2004) Truancy among Iban students in SMK Luar Bandar Sibu and suggestions on how the problem could be overcome: a case study. [Final Year Project Report / IMRAD] (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Truancy is a common disciplinary problem in SMK Luar Bandar Sibu. Iban students are among those who play truant in the school. This study aims to investigate what are the types and causes of truancy among Iban students in SMK Loar Bandar Sibu. It also aims to find out how the school deals with truancy and also to look for some suggestions that could be used to improve the current system used by the school to curb truancy. The sample of this study consists of 40 absentees and three teachers which comprises a form teacher, disciplinary teacher and the Student Welfare Senior Assistant of the school. These three teachers were given priority as sample of this study because of their posts, that they involve directly in dealing with truancy in the school. This study used documentation, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to collect data. The data were only collected after the researcher got the approval from the Ministry of Education and the State Education Department. Before the actual date of collecting data, the researcher went to see the school principal to ask for permission to conduct the data collection, to brief the principal about the purpose of collecting the data and the procedure how the data would be collected, and to inform and to confirm with the principal about the subjects involved in the data collection. The respondents were given one hour to complete all the questions. From this study, it was found that there were four types of truancy committed by Than students in the school, and all the four types of truancy occurred in the school due to student-related factors, teacher-related factors, school related factors and family-related factors. Findings from this study also revealed that the school has five main ways to deal with truancy. It included giving demerit points to absentees; call for absentees' parents, giving counselling session; issued warning letters to absentees' parents and finally expelling absentees from school if they fail to come back to school within one month after receiving the three warning letters from their school. Through this study, it was suggested that the six main suggestions below could be useful to improve the current system used by the school to curb truancy. The school should make use of computers to attract students to like school Parents should play an active role in their children education. Teachers should give more attention to students. The school should organise meetings with absentees together with their parents. The school should calls for absentees' parents for the first day their children absent, and the last resort the school should use to curb truancy is public caning.

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