Official Bank Sites Related Information Multimedia March 23, 2006—In this article, we explore the problem of absenteeism among teachers and medical workers in developing countries. A young male student, holding a piece of paper, stood in front of a classroom in Indonesia. To the casual observer, the student looked like he was doing a “show and tell”. But to researchers at the Indonesian school on an unannounced visit, it became clear the student was filling in for a teacher, who had failed to show up at work. According to a study by researchers at the World Bank and Harvard University, absenteeism is all too common among teachers in developing countries. And the problem is not just isolated to schools. The study – based on the results of unannounced visits to primary schools and health clinics in Bangladesh, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Peru and Uganda - found widespread absenteeism among teachers and health workers in the facilities. Developing-country governments often spend 50 to 90 percent of their recurrent education and health budgets on staff, without the most basic of returns – getting them to show up at work. On average, across the six countries, 35 percent of health workers and about 19 percent of teachers failed to show up for work. “The range is quite big. We have as few as 11 percent of teachers absent in Peru and then at the other end of the spectrum, we have 40 percent of health workers absent in India and Indonesia,” says Halsey Rogers, Senior Economist with the World Bank’s
Development Research Group. Nazmul Chaudhury, an Economist with the Bank’s South Asia Human Development network, says in Bangladesh average teacher absenteeism was on par, if not lower than those in Indian states and compared to subsequent studies in Pakistan and Nepal. “But in terms of doctor absenteeism, it’s as high as any other South Asian country,” Chaudhury. But he says absenteeism was even more “horrendous” in Bangladesh’s remote areas.
“You go to areas which are just staffed by one doctor and there the absenteeism rate was in the 70 to 80 percent range,” Chaudhury says. At Work, But Not Working The study, the first multi-country research of its kind on the issue, suggests that even these high rates of absenteeism may be presenting too favorable a picture. A number of teachers and health workers on the job weren’t actually doing their job. “In the areas with the worst governance, we think that is quite a serious problem,” Rogers says. “We found in India, on average, only about half the teachers were actually working when our survey teams arrived at the schools. In the worst states, it’s as little as 20 or 25 percent of teachers who are actually working.” A Severe Problem in Poorer Regions Rogers says the study found the problem of absenteeism was worse in poorer areas. “There’s a strong association with income levels. Both across Indian states and across the countries we have, the poor countries and states have much higher absenteeism among teachers. “So if you double a country’s income level, we would predict that teacher absence rates would fall by about eight percentage points – which is quite a big effect,” Rogers says. But Not a Problem Linked with Pay However the study found no real link between low salaries and high rates of absenteeism. Rogers says, in general, the study found the head teachers and doctors – the more senior, older and better-paid people–were less likely to show up at work. While Rogers says some of the absences could be for valid reasons, such as illness and training, in some areas the absence rates were far too high to be just explained by those reasons. “But this research is not about blaming teachers and health workers – especially since many, or even most, are doing their best in trying circumstances. It’s about highlighting a major systemic problem in getting education and health care to poor people.” Rogers says part of the problem is monitoring. “No one is monitoring them and they’re not being held to a standard of performance.” The study says while official rules provide for the possibility of punitive action in cases of repeated absenteeism, disciplinary action is rare. Teachers and health workers are almost never fired. Despite India’s 25 percent teacher absence rate, only one head teacher in the sample of nearly 3000 Indian government-run schools reported a case in which a teacher was fired for repeated absence. Which raises the question – why is there so little monitoring? Rogers says the answers are varied. “In some cases, it’s just difficult to monitor. When we had a conference on this to present our results in India, one of the participants was a high ranking official in the health ministry from one of the poorer states. And he said he can’t send his inspectors out to monitor clinics simply because they can’t afford the gas and because it’s too dangerous - the crime rates are too high.” In other cases, Rogers says, local communities monitor poor performance by teachers and health workers but then lack the power to make them perform better. |
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