Teacher Absence as a Factor in Gender Inequalities in Access to Primary Schooling in Rural Pakistan

The presence of a teacher in the classroom is central to the provision of schooling, with accumulating evidence showing that teacher absence compromises student learning. Teacher absence is common in schools in low- and middle-income countries. With much of the developing world making rapid progress...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Comparative education review 2010-11, Vol.54 (4), p.539-554
Main Authors: Ghuman, Sharon, Lloyd, Cynthia
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Absenteeism
Access to Education
Art teachers
Coeducation
Correlation
Elementary School Students
Elementary School Teachers
Elementary schools
Enrollment
Equal Education
Foreign Countries
Gender Differences
Gender studies
Income
Inequality
Outcomes of education
Pakistan
Private Schools
Rural Areas
School enrollment
School surveys
Single Sex Schools
Teacher Attendance
Teacher Characteristics
Teacher surveys
Teachers
Womens studies
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Summary:The presence of a teacher in the classroom is central to the provision of schooling, with accumulating evidence showing that teacher absence compromises student learning. Teacher absence is common in schools in low- and middle-income countries. With much of the developing world making rapid progress in achieving universal primary school enrollment and gender equality in enrollment, Pakistan lags substantially behind other nations at its income level on both measures. In this article the authors focus on teacher absence among female teachers in government girls' schools, male teachers in government boys' schools, and, by way of comparison, among teachers in private coeducational schools in rural Pakistan. First, the authors analyze the school and teacher-level characteristics that are correlated with absence in teachers in each of these three types of schools. Second, they examine how teacher absence differentially affects access to schooling among girls enrolled in government girls' schools as compared to pupils enrolled in boys' school or in coeducational private schools. They conducted their analysis using data collected on teachers and pupils in 1997 and 2004 from primary schools serving 12 villages in rural Punjab and Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP). (Contains 3 tables and 10 footnotes.)
ISSN:0010-4086
1545-701X
DOI:10.1086/654832