The Christian Science Monitor notes Monday that parents and students in India have complained for years about teachers who frequently miss work.
But the extent of teacher truancy has been unclear until recently when a team of economists from Harvard University and the World Bank scrutinized it in detail.
They hired research firms to make three surprise visits to 3.700 randomly selected government primary schools, largely in rural areas, in 20 Indian states.
The study concluded that, at any time, 25 percent of the teachers were absent from schools. In a one-room school, that often meant an empty, padlocked building.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
