Missing in action? The World Bank’s surveys of teacher absenteeism in sub-Saharan Africa

ABSTRACT

This article critically evaluates the most important data set on teacher absence in sub-Saharan Africa, namely the World Bank’s national education service delivery indicator school surveys which have been conducted in 10 countries during the last decade. The three main conclusions of this review are (i) the very high levels of teacher absenteeism reported in these surveys are, for a variety of reasons, overestimated; (ii) the reporting and interpretation of the survey findings have been misleading and incorrect; and (iii) the failure to contextualise properly teacher absence leads to shortcomings in the proposed interventions for addressing this problem.

摘要

本文对撒哈拉以南非洲地区最重要的教师缺勤数据集进行批判性评估，这一数据集指过去十年间世界银行在十个国家开展的关于国家教育服务交付指标的学校调查。本文得出三个主要结论：（1）由于多种原因，调查中教师奇高的缺勤率被高估；（2）对调查结果的汇报和解读具有误导性且失实；（3）调查未能充分理解教师缺勤的背景，导致提出的干预措施存在缺陷。

KEYWORDS:

• Teachers
• absenteeism
• Sub-Saharan Africa
• World Bank

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The World Bank’s 2018 World Development Report along with the 2015 publication entitled Successful Teachers, Successful Students display more positive and respectful attitudes towards teachers (see Beteille and Evans 2015).

2 For example, see Lockheed and Verspoor (1991) and the World Bank (1996).

3 Bangladesh, India and Indonesia in South and South East Asia, Ecuador and Peru in South America, and Uganda in SSA.

4 The average (unweighted) absence rate for health workers was 35% and for teachers 19%.

5 Health SDI surveys continue to be conducted in over 10 countries in SSA.

6 Interestingly, Chaudhury et al. specifically discount the importance of teacher illness. They state ’taking director’s responses at face value, it seems clear that the two categories of authorised absence – illness and official duties – do not account for the bulk of absence’ (op. cit. pp. 101).

7 Comprehensive statistics are not available, but teachers rarely teach more than one shift.

8 UWEZO is a well-established NGO in East Africa whose school surveys are highly respected.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul Bennell

Paul Bennell is an independent consultant and researcher specialising in education policy and practice in Sub-Saharan Africa.