Teacher Absence in India

A new representative survey of primary schools in India indicates that 25% of teachers in government primary schools are absent on a typical day. Absence rates vary from 15% in Maharashtra to 38% in Bihar and 42% in Jharkhand. Male teachers, older teachers, more educated teachers, and head teachers are more likely to be absent. Teacher absence in private schools is 2 percentage points lower than in government schools. Contract teachers operating outside of normal civil service rules have similar absence rates to civil service teachers. Schools with better infrastructure have lower teacher absence, as do those that are near a paved road, and those that do not practice multi-grade teaching. Teachers in schools that have been inspected recently are less likely to be absent. We do not find evidence that the existence of a PTA is correlated with lower absence. There was no significant relationship between absence rates and whether the teacher is from the area where the school was located or how long the teacher had been posted at that school. Schools with high teacher absence have lower student attendance and test scores, although the relationship is not that strong. 1 Department of Economics, Harvard University. Corresponding authors. Please address all correspondence to [email protected] and to [email protected]. 2 Development Economics Research Group, World Bank. 3 We thank Abhijit Banerjee, Jishnu Das, Jean Dreze, Esther Duflo, Asim Khwaja, Ben Olken, Lant Pritchett, Mark Rosenzweig, and seminar participants at Harvard University for discussions and comments. We offer thanks to the staff of the Social and Rural Research Institute, New Delhi – and especially to Chhavi Bhargava, Navendu Shekhar, A V Surya, and Aditi Varma – for conducting and overseeing the fieldwork. Anjali Oza and Sandra Sequeira provided excellent research assistance. We gratefully acknowledge financial support for the project from the DFID, UK. Karthik Muralidharan thanks the Rai family for their kindness and hospitality during his stays in Delhi and the Fellowship in Justice, Welfare, and Economics at Harvard University for financial support. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. Working papers describe research in progress by the authors and are published to elicit comments and to further debate.