Cost Analysis of Teacher Absenteeism in Nigerian Secondary Schools

The paper was based on the contention that teacher absenteeism is costly, which could lead to wastage in the school system. Hence, the paper analyzed the cost of un-authorized teacher absenteeism in Nigerian secondary schools between 1997 and 1999, i.e. two academic sessions of 1997/98 98/99. The analysis revealed that the cost of absenteeism was relatively high when the dwindling financial allocation to education is put in mind. The analysis showed that the total cost of absenteeism for the period was N56.0 million (US $800,018) at N70/US $1 exchange rate that was in existence at that time. The yearly average cost was N26.0 million (US$400,009). The analysis also showed that cost of absenteeism seemed to be higher in Delta, Kwara and Ogun states when the % of sample was juxtaposed with the % of total cost of absenteeism. On the other hand, the cost of absenteeism seemed to be lower in Edo, Lagos and Ondo states, when their percentage of sample was juxtaposed with the percentage of total cost. Similarly, the average total unit cost of N222 ($3.2) of rural schools as against N220 ($3.1) of urban schools suggested that the cost of absenteeism could be a bit higher in the rural schools than the urban schools. The paper therefore, concluded that though the total money cost of un-authorized teacher absenteeism could be small (only 6.0% of the total actual teacher emolument during the period of study), such amount could constitute an enormous wastage. This included the un-quantified cost, especially to students in form of lessons not taught, going by the aggregate number of days (256,237) teachers were absent. An all-inclusive approach was suggested to reduce the incidence of unauthorized teacher absenteeism. This included better working conditions, comprehensive rural development, improved funding of schools and application of the available laws to check rate of absenteeism among teachers. It is hoped that these suggestions would make teachers to be more committed to their job, thereby encouraging better attendance, thus reducing the cost of wastage arising from teacher absenteeism. on the social-cultural development of their society, since they influence many values directly and indirectly to their students. No wonder (Coombs 1985; Federal Government of Nigeria 1985; Psacharopoulos and Woodhall 1997; Ukeje 1986 and Utulu 2001) all identified teachers’ quality and dedication as significant predictors of quality of education. Also, Taiwo (1986) believed that teachers occupy a transcendental position of importance in the world and in the affairs of people. The school system depends heavily on teachers for the execution of its programmes. However, the quality of school productivity will be meaningless if teachers’ attitude to work is negative (Nwadiani 1992). Therefore, to improve educational standards, there must be dedicated and appropriately motivated teachers. Unfortunately, there has been a perennial problem of instability of teachers in the country. Indeed, teacher absenteeism and turnover; job dissatisfaction; perceived neglect and excessive grievances have been identified as the most 138 KOLA ADEYEMI AND NELSON EJIRO AKPOTU pressing and complex problems confronting the nation’s teaching profession. The shirking model as used by (McConnel and Brue 1989; Sapford and Tzannatos 1993) have some degree of discretion over their performance at work and are therefore capable of shirking; that is neglecting or evading responsibility. This could manifest in truancy, lateness especially when the working condition is not motivating. The worker exercises this discretion positively or negatively depending on his state of mind. Workers generally compare their inputs to the equitability of the reward received and would likely shirk, if they feel that the working condition and environment are lower than expected. Thus, even in the absence of attractive salaries, workers may decide not to shirk, if in their opinion, the non-economic and welfare packages are sufficiently attractive or traded off. However, the absence of both may leave the workers with the bitter option of shirking. In Nigeria, teachers’ welfare and conditions of service were abysmal especially in the 1990’s. In addition, the school environment was highly repellent. School buildings were dilapidated, with inadequate teaching-learning facilities and in most cases, the classrooms were over-crowded. All these could alter the attitude of teachers to work. In fact, since the government take-over of schools, the attitude of the Nigerian teacher seems to have gradually deteriorated (Adeyemi and Akpotu 2001). This situation has forced many teachers to leave in search for “better” jobs, while many others have become indifferent to school affairs resulting in truancy and negative work attitude. Corroborating this development, (Meziobi and Nwadiani 1992) had observed that, teachers’ truancy and absenteeism have assured increasing and frustrating dimensions. While (Aghenta 1993: 25) lamented that the teaching profession in Nigeria is fast becoming “a grumbling profession” and an increasing number of teachers are regarding teaching as “a part-time and pass-time occupation”. Ironically, education sector has enjoyed huge government expenditure, only second to expenditure on defense in yearly budgetary allocation over the years. Specifically, Coombs (1985) had identified education as the world’s largest growth industry over years in many countries, with huge capital outlay. In Nigeria, the chunk of education budgetary allocation goes to recurrent expenditure, especially for the payment of teacher’s salaries and allowances. As remarked by (Aghenta 1993), about 71% of recurrent expenditure on education is spent to pay teachers. This is to show that the social cost of education is very high in Nigeria, because of the level of development. The government is largely responsible for public education. The cost of education keeps rising every year due to periodic wage increase, expansion of the educational system due to the introduction of Universal Basic Education and spiral inflation trend of 14.5% average; Central Bank of Nigeria (2002).In this circumstance, the average unit cost in most education systems has the tendency of rising from year to year, while quality may remain at a standstill or even declines. Unfortunately, such records are hardly available in the Nigerian school system. However, reports on university education in Nigeria (Federal Ministry of Education 2001) reveal that average institutional cost per student ranged from N37, 082 in 1992 to N105, 000 in 2001. This represents an increase of N67, 918 or 183.16%, for the period. This, no doubt is an indication that there has been enormous increase in the overall educational cost. This phenomenon of rising unit cost of education is largely due to the highly labour intensive nature of education. Psacharopoulos and Woodhall (1997: 176) for example, indicated that teachers’ salaries represent “at least 70 percent of the total current costs of education in many developing countries and more than 90 percent of the current costs of primary education”. That teacher’ salaries and personnel emoluments exert such a powerful influence on current cost of education means that teachers’ salaries must be carefully weighed against educational efficiency. Indeed all attempts to reduce education costs are bound to focus on teachers’ salaries, if meaningful results are to be achieved. In spite of these growing financial costs of education, very serious problems have been confronting the Nigerian educational systems in the form of teacher absenteeism (Adeyemi and Akpotu 2001). Bearing in mind the crucial role of teachers in the educational industry and the “high-handedness” of teachers’ salaries in current cost of education, negative attitude on the part of teachers, which influences efficiency could have compounding implications on costs of education. Education is both a social and economic good, 139 COST ANALYSIS OF TEACHER ABSENTEEISM IN NIGERIAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS hence, it provides for the training and education of the child to ensure benefits for the child and society. Economically, education is seen as a worthwhile investment that is expected to yield off, acting as an engine for economic growth and development. How well these benefits are achieved depends largely on the quality, competence and dedication of the teachers. The phenomenon of teacher absenteeism has devastating consequences on the educational system, the national economy and on the students. Economically, absenteeism reduces the efficiency of the school system through increase in economic wastage of the school system and of the meager and scarce resources available to education and the economy. Also, Vaizey (1971) and Adeyemi (1998) contended that teacher absenteeism has the tendency to increase cost of financing education. It can also lead to increased student dropout rates. There is the tendency to classify absentee teachers as truant teachers with much tendency to breed truant and delinquent students. It is important to note that absenteeism in this paper refers to days of un-authorized leave and absence from schools by teachers. The authors recognized that there are reasons for absenting oneself from duty. They include the personalrelated ones like illness and family-related problems. The job-related ones include poor condition of service, job dissatisfaction, and personality problem. Absenteeism could be because of genuine reasons, but could be illegitimate when the school authority is not duly informed before or immediately there is a cause for it either in writing or by proxy. It is a common knowledge that absentee teachers come back thereafter with various flimsy excuses and lies. In fact, section 67, part IX, cap 4 of Western Nigerian Education Laws considers teacher’s absence from school without permission as a professional misconduct, which if proved “would warrant the prohibition or suspension from teaching of the teacher. The irony of it today is that such teachers are paid their full salaries by school heads, with no official report made to supervising ministry. If a worker gets paid for an undone job, it is morally awful and economically irresponsible. The aggregate of such practices would inflate the cost of production, even if it is marginal. Thus, Vaizey (1971) and Adeyemi (1998) had contended that teacher absenteeism has the tendency to increase the cost of education. They believed that it could also lead to increased student dropout rates. This is because such teachers have much tendency to breed truant and delinquent students. Absenteeism could also be a sign of bad management, which can cause a lot of harm and damage to the organization. Hence, Evans (1995 ) revealed that organizations with high degree of absenteeism are subject to higher fringe loss than necessary as a result of under-utilization of facilities already paid for and above all, loss in overall productivity. Teacher absenteeism affects the internal and external efficiency of the educational system. It certainly leads to loss of many school days resulting to high rate of dropouts and failures as well as creating a pool of large numbers of costly repeaters, because many lessons would not be taught. Largely, most educational financial analysts hardly consider how efficiently the available physical, financial and human resources are being used to achieve desired educational goals. In the Nigerian setting, school administrators hardly have ideas of what it cost to provide any unit of education or how the classroom time of the teacher is judiciously used. In the absence of such basic data, educational managers become severely handicapped to improve cost effectiveness and to assess and explore alternative possible ways of getting more and better results within the limits of available resources. More so, the efficiency of the Nigerian educational system has much been in doubt. It is in this light that this study intends to contribute to improve educational planning and management for improved efficiency in the use of limited resources to minimize wastage arising from absenteeism. Specifically, this paper examined the following problems: 1. What is the pattern of un-authorized teacher absenteeism in Nigerian public secondary schools? 2. What is the cost of un-authorized teacher absenteeism in Nigerian public secondary schools?