Question : Absenteeism among Teachers and Students

(a) the status of absenteeism of teachers and students in schools in the country at all levels,
during the last three years, State/UT-wise;
(b) whether any behaviour policy has been initiated by the Government for both students
and teachers to check the problem of absenteeism in schools and if so, the details thereof;
(c) the percentage of teacher related expenses in total budget along with the percentage of
salaries paid to teachers during the last three years;
(d) the percentage of teacher related expenses under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan;
(e) whether any policy/programme exists through which teachers'' pay and performance are
linked and if so, the details thereof; and
(f) whether the Government proposes to provide performance incentives to high performing
teachers and if so, the details thereof ?

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
(SHRI UPENDRA KUSHWAHA)
(a): The recruitment and service conditions, including monitoring of teachers’ attendance
are primarily in the domain of State Governments and UT Administrations.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development commissioned two major research
studies to assess the attendance rate of students and teachers, in 2006 and 2013. According to
these two studies, the overall attendance of teachers improved from 81.7% to 84.3% at the
primary level and from 80.5% to 81.3% at the upper primary level. The overall attendance of
students improved from 68.5% to 72.2% at the primary level and from 75.7% to 77.8% at the
upper primary level. State-wise details of comparative findings of average attendance rate of
teachers and students on headcount during the study in 2006-07 and 2012-13 are at Annexure-I
and Annexure-II, respectively.
(b): Section 24 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act,
2009 mandates that a teacher appointed under sub-section (1) of the Section 23 shall perform
the following duties, namely (a) maintain regularity and punctuality in attending school and (b)
complete entire curriculum within specified time. The steps taken by the Central Government
to improve teachers’ attendance include, inter alia, monitoring teachers’ attendance through
School Management Committees/School Management Development Committees/Block
Resource Centres/Clusters Resource Centres and encouraging States and UTs to use digital
technology like installation of Bio-metric attendance system in schools.
(c) &(d): The percentage of teacher related expenses in total budget along with the percentage
of salaries paid to teachers during the last three years teacher under Sarva Shiksha
Abhiyan(SSA) are at Annexure-III and under the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan
(RMSA) are at Annexure-IV.
(e) &(f) The recruitment and service conditions including the policy relating to the linkage
between teachers'' pay and performance, if any, comes under the domain of the State
Governments and UT Administrations. The National Council of Educational Research and
Training (NCERT) has developed Performance Indicators for Elementary Education
(PINDICS) to track teacher performance and attendance in Government schools. States and
UTs have been using Performance Indicators (PINDICS) for assessing the performance of
teachers for improvement in learning. It is also used for teacher appraisal by the supervisory
staff to assess and to provide constructive feedback for the improvement of teacher
performance.
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