Schools and court systems need to work together to tackle the problem Article

Schools and court systems need to work together to tackle the problem with trauncy and increase graduation rate - Article Example In order to prevent truancy one needs to find out the main reason behind truancy. Trujillo (2006) observes there are four primary causes behind truancy - student demographics, family characteristics, personal and psychological factors of the student, and climate and condition of family, school and society (Trujillo, 2006, p.74). Truancy and Dropouts School absenteeism and truancy is not always the same. There are various kinds of absenteeism and not all are grouped under the term truancy. Absence of a student from specific classes or in course of specific lessons or absence under parental consent would not fall under truancy. But, absence without any proper reason can be considered under truancy. If absence without good reason continues then there is a chance that students might incur poor academic results. Sometime bad relations with teachers or friends, involvement in unconstructive activities cause truancy. Once a young student starts believing that they are lagging behind his or her batch mates then the tendency of dropping out also increases rapidly as the latter option is more convenient than competing with others (Reid, 2005, p.59). Truancy and Juvenile Crime Truancy not only affects the young generation of the country but also hampers the growth of the population as well as development of the future generation. The direct and indirect effects of truancy always have an impact on individual, families, school and society in both short as well as long term. Zhang et.al (2007) observes that truancy destroys potential in youths. As a result they are headed for social isolation, criminal activities and education failure. Tendency of chronic absence in the early school days was associated with poor results in examination, isolation from friends’ groups which ultimately caused dropouts in near future. In their review, they also pointed out that, truancy accounted for almost 26% of juvenile crime cases. According to their point of view, truancy can be cons idered as a first sign of trouble and most powerful reason for the delinquent behavior. Students who miss occasional classes were more inclined to get addicted to marijuana than those who never skip. They also mentioned that students who admitted being involved in truancy were, likely to be reported having committed serious crimes, and arrested owing to their involvement in serious assault. Generally when youths were absent from school, the rate of crime increased during the school going years only. Some truants were reported hanging out during school time, cruising in cars, and getting into trouble while skipping school (Zhang et.al, 2007, pp. 246-250). How Truancy Affect Dropout Dropouts from the school is directly associated with truancy. In the beginning of their school days, if students remain absent from school without any proper reason then they eventually consider this as a habit. White and Kelly observe the rates of dropout in USA were 11% among the age group of 18-24 in th e year 2008. They also pointed out the fact that rate of drop out was higher among the low income group which was 10.4% compared to that of the high income group (2.5%) in the same year. Truancy and absenteeism was the main reason behind this increased rate of drop out. Once it becomes a habit, students chose to drop out rather than catching up. In 2007 almost 9 percent students from the age group of 16-24 years dropped