Truancy is any intentional unauthorized absence from compulsory schooling. The term typically describes absences caused by students of their own free will, and usually does not refer to legitimate "excused" absences, such as ones related to medical conditions. The term's exact meaning differs from school to school, and is usually explicitly defined in the school's handbook of policies and procedures. It has no relation to
homeschoolingHomeschooling or homeschool is the education of children at home, typically by parents but sometimes by tutors, rather than in other formal settings of public or private school...
, although sometimes parents who practice homeschooling have been charged with this.
It may also refer to students who attend school but do not go to classes.
In some schools, truancy may result in an ineligibility to graduate or to receive credit for class attended, until the time lost to truancy is made up through a combination of detention, fines, or
summer schoolSummer school is a school, or a program generally sponsored by a school or a school district, that teaches students during the summer vacation....
.
Truancy is a frequent subject of popular culture; perhaps most famously
Ferris Bueller's Day OffFerris Bueller's Day Off is a 1986 American teen coming-of-age comedy film written and directed by John Hughes.The film follows high school senior Ferris Bueller , who decides to skip school and spend the day in downtown Chicago...
, which is entirely about the titular character's (played by
Matthew BroderickMatthew Broderick is an American film and stage actor who, among other roles, played the title character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Adult Simba in The Lion King film series, and Leo Bloom in the film and Broadway productions of The Producers.He has won two Tony Awards, one in 1983 for his...
) day of truancy in
ChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
with his girlfriend and best friend.
TruancyTruancy is a dystopian novel written by Isamu Fukui, a New York City student in Stuyvesant High School, when he was 15 years old. Set in a totalitarian city ruled by its Mayor and Educators, it follows the story of a fifteen-year-old student named Tack, and a student rebellion calling itself the...
is also the title of a 2008 novel about a student uprising against a dictatorial educational system.
List of slang expressions
There are a number of expressions in
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
which refer to truancy. In
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, the slang used is
bunking,
skipping or
jippo. In
JamaicaJamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, it is called
skulling. In
GuyanaGuyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...
skulking. In
Antigua and BarbudaAntigua and Barbuda is a twin-island nation lying between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It consists of two major inhabited islands, Antigua and Barbuda, and a number of smaller islands...
, it is called
skudding. In
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
truancy is called
wagging,
ditching, or
skipping school. It is called
bunking (off) or
skiving or
wagging in
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and
IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
,
mitching,
wagging or
on the knock in
WalesWales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
,
sagging in
LiverpoolLiverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
,
bunking or
cutting class,
doggin,
skiving,
playing tickie or
puggin in
ScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and
on the hop,
on the bunk,
mitching,
beaking,
on the beak,
scheming dossing,
or on the duck in IrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. In the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
expressions include
hookey,
playing hookey,
ditching,
dipping,
jigging,
sluffing,
skipping,
cutting class, or simply just
cutting. In the province of
Newfoundland and LabradorNewfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...
, the act of truancy is known amongst youths as "pipping off", and truant students are described as being "on the pip". In Trinidad and Tobago, it is referred to as
breaking biche. In Singapore and Malaysia, it is referred to as
fly, and in Malay,
ponteng, or simply just
pon...
Punishments imposed for truancy
In
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, schools, in most cases, contact and keep a close relationship with local police to combat 'wagging'. Most schools, who have a nearby police station, have police vehicles monitoring the areas around the school grounds who look for truant students. In most cases the students are returned to the schools. The Australian Government threatened to take action on parents who have truanting students by withdrawing child support payments to any parent whose child is caught multiple times. Recently, schools have started a system whereby if students are not marked as present, the school computers will automatically
textSMS is a form of text messaging communication on phones and mobile phones. The terms SMS or sms may also refer to:- Computer hardware :...
the parent(s) of the child to notify of their absence. Also, the use of marking present lists at schools has been taken over by that of computers. This way of checking if a student is absent, is a more accurate way to identify if the student is wagging and in what class.
In many
Canadian provincesThe provinces and territories of Canada combine to make up the world's second-largest country by area. There are ten provinces and three territories...
, a
police officerA police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...
who suspects a child of the correct age to be deliberately missing school for no legitimate reason has the authority to take that child to the school he or she is supposed to attend.
In
DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, some welfare benefits can be confiscated for a period if the child does not attend school. However, not all cities use this approach to keep the children in school. Most cities watch for families who have not returned their children to school after the summer vacation because some groups
exileExile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
d their children to their ethnic home countries for
behavior modificationBehavior modification is the use of empirically demonstrated behavior change techniques to increase or decrease the frequency of behaviors, such as altering an individual's behaviors and reactions to stimuli through positive and negative reinforcement of adaptive behavior and/or the reduction of...
. In the city of
AarhusAarhus or Århus is the second-largest city in Denmark. The principal port of Denmark, Aarhus is on the east side of the peninsula of Jutland in the geographical center of Denmark...
, 155 children had not turned up one week after the school started. April 2009 a research among 4,000 students showed that more than every third student had been absent during the last 14 days.
In
FinlandFinland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
truant pupils usually get detention in comprehensive schools. The police are not involved in truancy controlling but the teachers of the school monitor the school area and sometimes the nearby areas during recess to avoid unauthorized leaving from the school area. If the pupil is absent for a long period of time the parents can be fined. The aim of fining is to try to force parents to put their children into school. The child will not be escorted to school or taken from parents.
In
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, the parents of a child absent from school without a legitimate excuse are notified by the school. If the parents refuse to send their child to school or are unable to control their child, local child services or social services officers may request the police to escort the child to school, and in extreme cases can petition a court to partially or completely remove child custody from the parents. Parents may also be fined in cases of refusal.
In the
England and WalesEngland and Wales is a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. It consists of England and Wales, two of the four countries of the United Kingdom...
, the legal maximum for truancy is 11 days per term, after which it is a criminal offence for parents. Also, a police officer of or above the rank of superintendent may direct that for a specified time in a specified area a police officer may remove a child believed to be absent from a school without authority to that school or to another designated place. However this is not a power of arrest and it is not a power to detain, furthermore it does not make truancy a criminal offence. This power has existed since 1998. There is a warning given the first time the parents allow the child to commit truancy more than allowed, then there is a fine if continued, starting from £50.
In the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the fine for truancy can range from $250 to as much as $5000. In some cities teenagers found on the streets during school hours are sometimes even handcuffed. About 12,000 students were ticketed for truancy in 2008 in
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. Many states provide for the appointment of local truancy officers who have the authority to arrest habitually truant youths and bring them to their parents or to the school they are supposed to attend. Many states also have the power to revoke a student's driver's license. It is an office which, where it exists, is often held by a person also a
constableA constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions.-Etymology:...
or
sheriffA sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....
. However, the position of a full-time truancy officer is generally viewed as being a relic from the 19th century when mandatory school attendance was relatively new. Truancy regulations today are generally enforced by school officials under the context of parental responsibility. New automated calling systems allow the automated notification of parents when a child is not marked present in the computer, and truancy records for many states are available for inspection online.
Truant's Day
In Poland, the first day of spring (March 21) is an unofficial occasion popular among children, who traditionally play truant on that day. Similarly, students in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
have
Senior Skip DayInternational Ditch Day is a tradition in most American and Canadian high schools and junior high schools where most of the senior class skip school on a pre-determined day, typically the 111th day of school...
. The date for skip day varies among different schools.