Roll Call : Teacher Absence In Bangladesh

This study represents the first systematic examination of the issue of teacher absence in Bangladesh. The objectives of this study are to: (a) document and characterize the extent of teacher absence in primary and secondary schools; (b) understand the patterns and correlates of teacher absence; (c) examine the association between teacher absence and scholastic outcomes. The paper is structured as follows: section two the authors highlight some pertinent institutional characteristics of service delivery of primary and secondary schooling. In section three the authors discuss the survey methodology and dataset. In section four the authors present some descriptive statistics on absence rates, reasons given for absences, and discuss certain key teacher, school and pupil characteristics. In section five the authors lay out the conceptual framework, the econometric specifications, and discuss multivariate regression results regarding the correlates of teacher absence. In section six the authors explore the association between teacher absence and test scores. Finally, in section seven the authors conclude by discussing some policy implications.