Teacher Absenteeism in rural India - an experiment done by Duflo - Can we replicate in an improvised manner?

I came across a blog talking about Esther Duflo, a French economics professor at MIT.

Duflo (2007) conducted a research (Monitoring Works: Getting teachers to come to school)Teachers to  to reduce teacher absenteeism in rural India. In fact the problem is not endemic to rural India only; it is a widespread phenomenon in many developing countries in rural backwaters including in Pakistan and more specifically in the rural Sindh. The main cause is that schools are located at distant locations, and the schools are usually one or two teacher schools. 

Duflo in association with her colleague Rema Hanna, took a random sample of in Rajasthan, and used cameras for teachers daily attendance monitoring. Students took pictures of teachers in the morning and before school close. Cameras were temper proof with date and time stamps.  

The study proved that it was a simple idea, and it worked. Teacher absenteeism plummeted, as measured by random audits, and the class test scores improved markedly.

The million rupee question is could we in Sindh do something innovative/similar to enforce/encourage teachers availability at schools? Needs in depth discussion and review of ground realities.  

Reducing Teacher absenteeism in rural Sindh

Sometimes I really wonder if there is a way to reduce teacher absenteeism in one/two teacher schools in the rural backwaters of Sindh. It's quite a big challenge for any district/taluka authorities to effectively monitor teachers' presence at schools. It is quite predictable that non availability of a teacher on regular basis at a school, should demotivate a child from attending schools and should ultimately affect learning outcomes of children.

Our current management model based on Taluka (sub district ) and Union Council (UC/basic unit of a taluka) has not solved the problem of teacher absenteeism. There are many questions to be investigated and answered, for example:
i. Do teachers not come to school because there is no adequate monitoring mechanism in place?
ii. Are teachers not afraid of disciplinary punishment even if they are found to be absent?
iii. Do teachers bribe the officials for their absence from schools out of their salaries?
iv. Do teachers at the disposal of schools under a regular head teacher (sanctioned post) attend more regularly than at a school administered by non regular ones?
v. Can community monitor the teacher's absenteeism to help reduce absenteeism?
vi. Should teachers be made part of a pool at the disposal of an implementation partner to ensure availability of a teacher at each school?
vii. Does  political element or unions play a critical part in teacher's non availability at school?

And, myriad questions, come to my mind. But I have not thought out any quick fix solutions.  I think we need to investigate and see what should be done to reduce teacher absenteeism in rural Sindh. A concerted media campaign could also play a key role for improvement of the situation.

Zindagi Trust ( of Shehzad Roy, the Singer) offers help on Grade-I Maths Text Book Development

Mr. Shehzad Roy, the well known singer ( whose Zindagi Trust transformed a Govt. Girls College into a Quality institution in Karachi)  and his team visited today (17th Sept. 2010) Reform Support Unit (RSU), Education Department, NJV (School) Building, MA Jinnah Road, Karachi, to share the work on text book development for Class -I Maths. They offered their work to Education Department Govt. of Sindh, for adoption for Govt. Schools without any charge. They also shared their insights as to what were the issues in the current govt. text book for maths for Class -I. For example the following issues they identified :

- Current text book on Class-I Maths lacks creativity for teaching Maths;
- Each page of the Book has too much learning material cramped together which overburdens a child's capacity for absorption/learning and retaining:
- Illustrations are not many and may not appropriately serve child's need at this age for learning;
- Exercises are too few hence a child cannot retain what he/she learnt;
- Paper and color combination can be improved.
- Home grown ideas need to be integrated with research findings for text book development.

The Ed Department appreciated the work of Zindagi Trust, and expressed willingness to adopt the work shared. Mr. Alamuddin Bullo, the Secretary Education, expressed his full commitment on the issue of innovation of book development with the help of all partners including Zindagi Trust. Secretary was of the view all such efforts need to be synergised for improving the quality of education in Sindh. The Secretary directed Bureau of Curriculum to work with Zindagi trust towards making a proposal to this effect for implementation in future.

The meeting was also attended by the Chief Program Manager, and Deputy Program Managers (RSU), Director Bureau of Curriculum and some additional secretaries including Zindagi Trust Team.