Comparative Evidence from Rwanda, Zanzibar, Puntland and Kenya A presentation from the CIES 2019 Time-to-Teach Panel CIES Conference April 17, 2019 San Francisco

1. Teacher Absenteeism in East and
Southern Africa
CIES Conference
17 April 2019
Comparative evidence from Rwanda, Zanzibar, Puntland and Kenya

2. The cases
Rwanda
Puntland (Somalia)
Zanzibar (Tanzania)
Kenya

3. Demographic and socio-economic context
High population growth – fertility rates between 6.2% and 4%
Young population – 54% to 43% below 18 years
Fragmented & diverse population
Large % of population depends on agriculture
Conflict

4. Overview of primary education in the region
Significant progress toward education-related MDGs & SDG4
Introduction of FPE & increased investment in education
 Rising enrolment, completion and PST rates
 Reduced drop-out and repetition rates
But important challenges still remain…
Access
Equity
Quality

5. Teacher absenteeism: the current state of play
Rwanda: 18% of Primary 6 students reported their teachers as often
absent from school (MINEDUC and UNICEF, 2017)
Kenya: Teacher school absenteeism estimated at 10% and classroom
absenteeism at 27% (Price et al. 2019)
Zanzibar: Absence of official data. Schools absenteeism estimated at 14%
and classroom absenteeism at 47% (for Tanzania as a whole) (WB, 2015)
Puntland: Absence of official data. School and classroom absenteeism
perceived as high (anecdotal accounts & expert interviews)

6. Quantitative Findings (Rwanda, Puntland,
Kenya)

7. Absence from school
0 5 10 15 20 25
Health
Family Reasons
Official School Business
Social / Community Obligations
Receiving pay
Weather
Teacher response to "What are the main reasons that may
sometimes keep you away from school?"
Kenya Rwanda

8. Absence of punctuality
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Health
Family reasons
Climate
Official School Business
Transportation
Teacher response to "What are the main reasons that may sometimes
cause you to arrive to school late or leave from school early?”
Kenya Puntland Rwanda

9. Absence from classroom
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Administrative reasons
Health
Official school business
Weather
Teacher response to “What are the main reasons that may sometimes keep you
outside of the classroom even though you are physically present at school?”
Kenya Puntland Rwanda

10. Absence from teaching
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Health
Weather
Pupil misbehaving
Non teaching workload
Lack of TLMs
Teacher response to “What are the main reasons that may sometimes
limit the time you spend on teaching while in the classroom?”
Kenya Rwanda

11. Absence of quality teaching
0 5 10 15 20 25
Lack of TLM
Lack of content knowledge
Lack of training in classroom management
Language of instruction
Low student and parental aspirations
Teacher response to "When your students struggle to follow the class
what do you think are the main reasons?
Kenya Rwanda

12. Qualitative Findings (Rwanda, Puntland,
Kenya, Zanzibar)

13. Common determinants by level of analysis
National level  Teacher policies (remuneration, training,
monitoring)
Sub-national
level
 Monitoring capacity
Community
level
 Climatic conditions
 Transportation and infrastructure
 Community engagement and monitoring capacity
School level  Head teacher’s leadership and monitoring capacity
 Teachers’ workload
 Teaching and learning materials
Teacher level  Health
 Personal and social responsibilities

14. However…
Low salaries do not always lead to moonlighting (e.g. in Zanzibar, Kenya)
 Availability of alternative income generating activities
 Decentralized teacher recruitment
Varying teacher training needs
 Linguistic inadequacy (Rwanda and Zanzibar)
 Newly implemented curriculum (Rwanda, Puntland, Kenya)
Varying implementation capacities of sub-national actors
 Lack of consistency (Rwanda)
 Lack of resources (Rwanda, Puntland and Kenya)
 Lack of authority to sanction (Puntland)

15. However…
The issue of transport is multi-faceted
 Reliability (Rwanda and Zanzibar)
 Affordability (Rwanda)
Varying degree of community-engagement and monitoring
 Insufficient in Rwanda
 High in Puntland and Kenya (with well-established mechanisms for
sanctioning teachers)
• Varying HT monitoring capacity
• HTs systematically record only absence from school and punctuality
(Rwanda, Puntland, Zanzibar)
• In Kenya more sophisticated M&E framework (TPAD)

16. Key takeaways
 Multiple types of teacher absenteeism (TA) recorded in all cases
 Factors at various levels combine to give rise to each TA type
 Systemic governance, accountability and management issues (EDU system)
 Inter-governmental concern
 Important similarities between countries (in terms of determinants)
 Important variations too (both within and between cases)
 Contextual specificities
 Quality of policy design
 Policy implementation capacity
 Significant potential for cross-country learning

17. Regional policy guidelines
• Improve teachers’ status, compensation, and career progression policies
• Ensure pre-service training focuses less on content and more on
pedagogy
• Promote meritocratic selection of teachers and head teachers to
improve the quality of school staff
• Improve in-service training for teachers, head teachers, school
inspectors and curriculum advisers
• Use technology to improve teacher monitoring
• Explore inter-governmental synergies and promote government-wide
solutions to exogenous challenges

18. More findings to come…
Thank you!