School absenteeism among primary school pupils in cross river state: psychological implication for national development

Handling of issues and challenges in education at the primary school level believed to be the foundation on which other levels of education rest on will either promote or mar the onward movement of individuals to the other levels of education and the achievement of the objective of education as an instrument for national development. It is against this background that this study attempted to examine the causes of school absenteeism among primary school pupils in the three senatorial zones of Cross River State and proffer solution to remedy the problem. Two research questions were posed to direct the study. Data were collected with the researcher's developed and structured questionnaire captioned: School Absenteeism Questionnaire (SAQ). Multi-stage sampling technique involving stratified and simple random sampling procedures were used to select three hundred and twenty (320) pupils out of three hundred and two thousand, two hundred and ten (302,210) primary six pupils in public schools in Cross River State. They were drawn from 16 primary schools in eight (8) randomly selected local government areas across the three (3) senatorial Zones in Cross River State. Frequencies and simple percentages were utilized to answer the research questions. The finding revealed that financial constraints, lack of interest, illnesses, pampering from family members, location of school were the major causes of absenteeism among pupils. It was recommended among others that parents and their children and/or wards should be counselled on the effect of absenteeism on school performance and its long term consequences on national development.