ASSESSING THE ECONOMIC & ACADEMIC IMPLICATIONS OF LECTURERS’ TRUANCY IN ABIA STATE UNIVERSITY, UTURU AND IMO STATE UNIVERSITY, OWERRI

Abstract

Truancy among lecturers does not receive as much attention as that of students. Its causes and impact require an empirical examination. This study focused on the causes of lecturers’ truancy and its implications on the academic performance of students and the national economy. The study was anchored on Piaget’s theory of human growth and development and Maslow’s theory of motivation. It made use of the descriptive research design and the questionnaire for data collection. An estimated population of the academic staff in Abia State University, Uturu was 345 and that of Imo State University, Owerri was 360. The students’ population in both universities were estimated at 19,540 and 23,450 for Abia State University and Imo State University respectively. Multi stage sampling was utilized to obtain a sample of 340 lecturers and 680 students. Appropriate test statistics were used for the analyses. The results showed that majority of the student respondents were single (86.8%), males (72.9%), Christian (88.8%) and mean age of 23 years.  A majority of staff were males (72.9%) and below senior lecturers (70%). Factors such as financial, logistics and extra activities lecturers engage in were significant causes of truancy. The test showed that different opinions on causes of truancy were not independent of the different categories (factors). There is a negative effect of truancy () on the mean performance of the students. The implication of the above result is that the productivity of these sets of students that passed through lecturers who hardly covered their lecture periods would be below expectation thus affecting the over all macro economy adversely. It is recommended that appropriate measures be put in place to checkmate the identified caused of truancy.