Patterns of teacher absence in public primary schools in Indonesia

This paper uses the first nationally representative survey of teacher absence collected through direct observation to determine the patterns of absence among full-time teachers in public primary schools in Indonesia. Based on the survey data, the authors found a national teacher absence rate of 19%, with almost half of the absences due to unacceptable reasons. In general, highly educated teachers, contract teachers, and less experienced teachers have higher absence rates. There are also significantly higher absence rates in schools with inadequate facilities. In contrast, teachers who take on extra jobs outside teaching are not associated with more absences while being dissatisfied with income is actually correlated with lower absence. Finally, given that sanctions on shirking teachers are rarely implemented, they do not seem to lower cases of teacher absence.