Solutions to Teacher Absenteeism in Government Primary Schools in India: Which Public Management Approach Works Best and Why

V BY WAY OF CONCLUSION
We started the paper with a description of four different styles of public management – the hierarchist, the egalitarian, the individualist and the fatalist approach – based on Hood’s cultural theory of public management. After a discussion of the implications of these styles for addressing the problem of teacher absenteeism, we zoomed in on three new policies and schemes that are meant – among other things – to address the problem of teacher absenteeism. Together with the more conventional solution (increasing monitoring and inspection) these constitute four alternative approaches, each fitting one of the management styles. We have shown that none of the solutions discussed has been really successful in addressing teacher absenteeism. It has become clear that, in order for the strategies to work well, certain preconditions have to be fulfilled. The creation of local level management bodies that would hold the teachers accountable (an egalitarian solution), for instance, requires that the members of these committees are sufficiently aware and empowered to stand up against malperforming teachers. In other words, there should be a level playing field. The voucher system (a solution fitting the individualist style) requires that there are multiple suppliers and that there is a larger body that keeps checking on quality. In more general terms, competition should be ruly (Moore, 2000). The recruitment of para-teachers (analysed here as an example of the fatalist approach) requires that the ad hoc remedy has a legitimacy and that it triggers the right kind of effects. Figure 2 summarises these preconditions of the various management styles and the extent to which these are realized in the case of addressing teacher absenteeism in India.
Figure 2: Preconditions for Management Styles

	Preconditions for Remedies to Work	Are these Conditions Realized in the Case of Addressing Teacher Absenteeism in India?
Hierarchist	Hierarchical authority perceived as legitimate	No, not always (not discussed in the paper)
Egalitarian	Goal of mutuality and participation shared by all participants Level playing field	No No
Individualist	Ruly competition Availability of multiple suppliers	No Not yet always
Fatalist	Ad hoc or parallel solutions should be accepted They should also trigger the right effects	No Yes, sometimes

To conclude, there are three points we would like to stress. First, since the realization of these preconditions is essential for the strategies to work, they should receive much more serious attention. The fatalist approach is a bit different here – after all, it is based on the idea that there is a large degree of unpredictability anyhow – but for the other three it can be concluded that, in order to allow the strategies to have the desired effects, a lot of effort has to go into the realization of the preconditions. In fact, it makes no sense to introduce the strategies without concurrent efforts to change the social and institutional environment in the necessary direction. The hierarchist approach requires an environment that is perceived as legitimate. This draws our attention to several dimensions of good governance, such as efficiency, rule of law, accountability, transparency and responsiveness. Given the extremely uneven level playing field that exists in much of India, any strategy based on the egalitarian management style should come with simultaneous initiatives to address the existing social and economic inequalities. In the case of local level management committees, this would mean serious investments in training and empowering committee members (often people who do not belong to socially dominant groups) to stand up against mal-performing schools and teachers. An individualist approach requires real choice and also the improvement of a regulatory system. This means that the introduction of a voucher system should be accompanied by initiatives to realize these requirements. The fulfilment of these preconditions is certainly no guarantee of success, but without their (progressive) realization it is naive to expect the strategies to have much result at all.

Second, a combination of strategies could perhaps work better than relying on just one strategy. In fact, the most successful effort to address teacher absenteeism that we came across in our review involved a combination of the hierarchist approach (intensification of inspection through the use of cameras) and the individualist approach (income incentives and disincentives) (Duflo and Banerjee, 2006).

Finally, all the management approaches imply strategies that ‘act on’ teachers rather than ‘act with’ them. It might well be that this is the Achilles’ heel of all approaches. They are all premised on the idea that teachers need to be disciplined by external forces. None of these approaches takes the problems, experiences and interpretations of the teachers themselves as the starting point. Based on our own fieldwork, we have come to realize that many teachers are themselves also very critical about their behaviour, lack of commitment and absenteeism. Moreover, they have sensible things to say about the reasons that have made them less motivated (Mooij, 2008). This made us realize that what is primarily needed is not a management approach that acts upon teachers, but an attitudinal change that regards teachers not only as part of the problem, but also as part of the solution – and thus as one of the essential actors to be involved in the formulation and implementation of any remedy.

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1 In most Indian States, primary schooling is from classes one to five; the elementary cycle is from class one to eight. Typically, in rural areas the entry age into class one is around 6 years.

2 Kremer et al (2005) found significant inter-State variations. The absence rate varied from 14.6 per cent in Maharashtra (the lowest) to 41.9 per cent in Jharkhand (the highest).

3 Pratham (2006) found a similar teacher absence rate of 25 per cent in rural areas in the whole of India.

4 See, for instance, Govinda (2005), Mooij (2008), Ramachandran et al (2005). For more arguments and references, see Narayan (2007).

5 See also Robinson et al (2000) for a framework of understanding organisational relationships that is similar to Hood’s different approaches, except that the fatalist management style is not included.

6 In 2006, this experiment was conferred the ‘ICT Digital Learning Innovation Award’.

7 We realise that there is an alternative interpretation that would regard the introduction of para-teachers as a sign of hope rather than as a sign of fatalism; after all, the idea is that this intervention would help to address the malaise. We classify it here as a fatalist response because the introduction of para-teachers on a large scale signifies a choice not to reform the existing human resources system within the Department of Education but to establish a parallel cadre.

8 This has been endorsed by the GoI as a good model which could be adopted by other States (MHRD GoI, 2006).

9 Their role in infrastructure provisioning and maintenance was found to be comparatively larger.

10 See www.ccs.in and www.schoolchoice.in.

11 See ‘Evaluation of the Delhi Voucher Project. Summary’, downloadable from http://www.schoolchoice.in/events/20090219_delhivvoucher_summary.php (accessed 6 March 2009)

12 Majumdar and Mooij (forthcoming) mention a second argument for a public regulatory body. If quality improvement depends exclusively on parents seeking the best opportunities for their children and the ‘edupreneurial’ activities within an increasingly dominant private sector, what is lost is the possibility of a larger public debate about the educational goals one wishes to achieve as a community – a public vision about educational quality.