Absenteeism among the Teachers: A Comparative Study between the Central and the State Government School Teachers of Papumpare District in Arunachal Pradesh

Abstract

Indian education system demands freedom from dictatorship of other countries and revival of Indian culture in the field of education today. But this goal is nearly impossible until the stakeholders learn their responsibilities. One of the most important stakeholders who are to partake the responsibilities of educational reforms in India are the Teachers and absenteeism among them become fundamental drawback. Therefore, the interest of the researcher was to study the status of absenteeism among the teachers. In this connection, normative survey method was used. Besides, a sample of 6 (Six) Government Secondary School Principals and 34 (Thirtyfour) Government Secondary School Teachers of Papumpare district in Arunachal Pradesh were selected by using stratified random sampling technique. 3 tools were used, out of which, 2 were developed and used by Zodinsanga Sailo (2014) (Mizoram) for the investigation of Absenteeism among teachers and one of the tools was a self developed tool of the investigator for measuring the attitude of teachers towards absenteeism. Based on the analysis of primary data and interview schedule, it came to light that the schools of central government experiences less problems related to absenteeism among the teachers than the schools run by state government. There is a strict provision for reducing the salary and to some extent- termination of teachers (particularly of the contractual teachers)in the central government schools whereas, schools controlled by the state government follow no such strict provisions. Interestingly, attitude of the state government secondary school teachers towards regularity of teachers in the school is positively higher than the attitude of teachers serving in the central government schools. Besides, some of the important suggestions for reducing problems of absenteeism provided by the principals and the teachers of central government schools were-(i) award to regular teachers, (ii) motivate the teachers for regularity, (iii) provide proper accommodation facilities to teachers etc. whereas, suggestions provided by the principals and the teachers of state government schools included-(i) reward to regular teachers, (ii) joint posting of husband and wife, (iii) proper transportation and accommodation facilities, (iv) disciplinary actions against irregular teachers and so on.