India's troubling truants: teachers

Hammer's findings reinforce those from a 1999 school survey of 188 government primary facilities in northern India.

"These include several cases of irresponsible teachers keeping a school closed or nonfunctional for months at a time, a school where the teacher was drunk, ... a head teacher who comes to school once a week, another head teacher who did not know the name of a single child in the school," said the Public Report on Basic Education (PROBE) in India, published by Oxford University Press.

This report examined potential reasons for teacher truancy or poor performance. Surveyed teachers were largely content with salary (68 percent) and leave entitlements (86 percent). "The most common complaint is that schools are under-equipped, underfunded, understaffed, and overcrowded," the report said. More than half had a leaking roof, 89 percent lacked functioning toilets, and half had no water supply. Some school buildings were misused as cattle sheds, police camps, teacher residences, or for drying cow-dung cakes.

On a December visit to Azadpur Village MCD Primary School for Girls, 900 students attended classes in two shifts at a four-story cinder block building smelling of urine and stagnant water. The walls were streaked black from thousands of handprints. The headmaster was on medical leave, two teachers were out on casual leave, two more were arriving late or leaving early on half-day leaves.

In a dank classroom, teacher Gita Sharma, watched 51 6-year-olds practice for a Hindi test. "It's difficult to sit all the time in a dirty class with dirty children," says Ms. Sharma. "I like teaching, but the means are very limited here and the children are very poor, so we have to show them basic hygiene and manners."

The political clout of teachers and unions is a significant problem, says John Dreze, a local economist who worked on PROBE. As civil servants, teachers can almost never be fired, and are seldom transferred. "During elections, they also manage voting booths. No political party wants to antagonize them," he says.

Teacher Vinod Aggarwal of the Wazirabad Waterworks Primary School for Boys acknowledged, "This influencetrading is a deep and secret point. Some teachers may be union leaders or people with powerful friends. [They] will do as they like."

Increasingly, parents have reacted by enrolling children in a private school system that is growing both in cities and villages.

Looking for solutions, The World Bank/Harvard study also found higher pay was not linked with lower absence rates: "Teachers are less likely to be absent at schools that have been inspected recently, that have better infrastructure, and that are closer to a paved road."

Potential reforms include improving school facilities, increasing inspections, having more local control, and hiring teachers by contract, the report added.

"We have to remember," adds the report, ''that for all its flaws it is the government schooling system that has brought elementary education within reach of the masses."

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