The school is a social and learning agent that provides the environment upon which a child may be formally educated in order to attain educational goals. School is one of the institutions that is responsible for the development and training of the mind and skill of man. School is also for the preparation of man for the challenges and responsibilities in the society at large. However, Schools are located variously, some in the urban while others are in the rural areas. It is observed that schools located in the urban areas tend to have more facilities, manpower, government attention, etc. as against those located in the rural areas.

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School location refers to the particular place, in relation to other areas in the physical environment (rural or urban), where the school is sited. In Nigeria, rural life is uniform, homogenous and less complex than that of urban centers, with cultural diversity, which often is suspected to affect students’ academic achievement.
SCHOOL LOCATION
School location refers to where a given school is situated. It could be in an urban or rural area. School location is a particular place in relation to other areas in the physical environment (rural or urban), where the school is sited. Human beings, have unlimited capacity to learn, but many however be limited by the behavior patterns and facilities that the immediate environment offers.
In Nigeria for instance, rural life is uniform, homogenous and less complex than that of urban centers, with cultural diversity, which often is suspected to affect students’ academic achievement. This is because urban centers are better favored with respect to distribution of social amenities such as pipe borne water, electricity, healthcare facilities while the rural areas are less favored. This is also true in the distribution of educational facilities and teachers. These prevailing conditions imply that learning opportunities in Nigerian schools differ from school to school. It would appear therefore that students in Nigerian urban schools have more educational opportunities than their counterparts in rural schools have.
TRUANCY
Truancy is defined as an action by a student being absent from school for no legitimate reason. Also, truancy is when a child missed school or class without an excuse from his/her parents or guardians. It also means a child leaving school or class without the permission from the teacher or principal. When a child is consistently late for school, he or she is considered to be a truant.
A truant therefore is a student who stays away from school without proper leave permission from school authority or the parents. Also, the students who always tend to keep themselves from studies and avoid attending classes are called truants. In short, truancy is a child who is absent from school on his own initiative without his or her parents‟ permission.
Truancy has caused a lot of harm to the educational system and has an ill-attitude on students academic performance, and moral lives which has caused most youths to exhibit negative attitude such as armed robber, prostitution, substance abuse, substance trafficking, and other social crime ranging from pick-pocketing to secret cult.
TYPES OF TRUANCY
There are three types of truancy which include: Habitual truancy, occasional truancy and casual truancy.
1. Habitual Truancy: This is type of truancy that occurs when a student (truant) constantly absent from school without the due knowledge or consent of his/her parents or the school authorities. Habitual truants are mainly those students who miss numerous full days of school academic activities. Their frequencies of absenteeism have become regular behavior or habit. It is important to note that students who are habitual truants have high chances of falling behind in school work, decline in their academic performance and even lose their attachment or positive attitudes towards school.
2. Occasional Truancy: This type of truancy occurs when a student does not constantly and continually absent himself from school. In this type of truancy, the student levels of absenteeism from school without the permission of parents or school authority is irregular. For example, a child whom the mother refuse going to school and was kept at home to help care for sibling and the child taken out of school for an out-of-season family holiday and so on are all instance of occasional truant.
3. Casual Truancy: This is the type of truancy which occurs when the students absence from school by chance. This type of truancy is not regular and constant but happens by chance. For example, students who remained lurking within sound of the school bell so that they could attend those lessons which interested them. A casual truant is student who keeps away from school and cuts up to 10 percent of the total number of working days during one academic session. A casual truant is an escapist to avoid unpleasant situation in the school, during school hours. He is amenable to suggestion and persuasion and hence most responsive. He is the marginal person to lapse into truancy if left alone and amenable to correction if properly handle.
4. Peer Group and Truancy: peer group means a small group of friends which have close relations with each other and they have regular interactions. They share views and exchange ideas with each other and do activities in groups. When children take steps into the stage of adolescence, they spend a large amount of time with their friends as compared to their parents. Those in a peer group have the same status and are about the same age, background, social and political affiliation.
Peer pressure is used to describe the demands for compliance to customs of the group and exhibiting dedication and loyalty to the members of the group. As members of a peer group, the group has more influence on the adolescents than they would have as on their own and they begin to recognize the value of united enterprise. Peer group is another factor that influences truancy. Peer groups are persons of the same age group, equals or friends with whom the child shares certain social characteristics. This social world to which they share same language, values, norms and mode of interaction may not be understood by the adults. However, it is through peer pressure that students are most likely to be introduced and involved in truant behaviors such as drinking, smoking, indecent act and drop out of school.
The peer group has effects on the student truant behaviors. As the child frees himself from dependency and control of the parents and other adults, he falls back on peer group for direction and control.
OTHER CAUSES OF TRUANCY
Several possible causes of truancy among students include student factors, family factors, school factors, and community factors. Also different teaching and learning styles, teachers‟ absenteeism, low teacher expectations, poor discipline and poor communication between teachers and students have an important relationship with truancy.
Furthermore, lack of parental supervision, poverty, misuse of substance and alcohol, lack of family support, household problems, broken homes, and households care duties are the contributory factors of truancy. Also, students‟ homework or assessment tasks, ailments, social incompetence, abnormal physical and mental health, lack of self-esteem, poor peer relationships, poor academic performance are some of the factors that contribute to truancy. However, school and family environment are the most influential factors in generating truancy among students. Truancy obstructs effective learning and causes poor academic performance of truant students‟ continuous keeping away from school lead to serious unwanted consequences for both the truant and the communities which caused deformation in the society.
SCHOOL LOCATION AND TRUANCY AMONG STUDENTS
school location means the extent to which school settings promote student safety and student health, which may include topics such as the physical plant, the academic environment available, physical and mental health supports and services, and the fairness and adequacy of disciplinary procedures, as supported by relevant research and an assessment of validity. The school is expected to provide an atmosphere that is conducive for proper learning and teaching as well as serving as a place to be loved by the students. However, in some situations school assists in making students to engage in truancy. For example, in a situation where a school is having teachers who are harsh to students, where there is high level of bullying, inappropriate school environment, boredom, poor management, poor relations with teachers and in some cases irrelevance of the curriculum, then there must be high tendency of truancy among the students. Harsh teachers, negatively school experience such as bullying, boring and boredom classes, inappropriate school environment, indiscipline prevalent in the school, lack of interest and curricular activities are some of the factors influencing truancy among students that come from the school itself. Therefore, it is crystal clear that the causes of truancy among students are many and varied. So attributing it to single cause is not possible. The factors influencing truancy are many and varied, and can come from the students, family, school, teacher, peer group, society and government at large. The school location has to be appealing to the students when, it is not attractive to them the students will resist and resent. To make the school attractive, the very location of the school, its surroundings and classrooms where study takes place have to be good. The environment is expected to have quality and qualified teachers that are committed. In an environment where teachers are not serious about their job can encourage students to become truants. Students can become truants when teachers teach only to earn a livelihood and not taking their profession as a sacred duty with commitment and dedication in building, moulding, and shaping the future of the children. When this situation prevails in the school, students can get an aversion to the school, its staff and environment and they can become truants.