Farah n Izzwandy, Managing Absenteeism Among Teachers at One Selected School
Transcript of Farah n Izzwandy, Managing Absenteeism Among Teachers at One Selected School
MANAGING ABSENTEEISM AMONG TEACHERS AT ONE SELECTED SCHOOL
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Teacher absenteeism has figured prominently as the culprit in the wastage of education
investments. A local daily newspaper, Daily Express dated 20th April 2006 published a report on
absenteeism which is the main disciplinary problem affecting the Federal civil service. The
Public Service Commission (PSC) of Malaysia Secretary, Mohd Yasin bin Mohd Salleh said that
the General Orders terms absenteeism in the public sector as being absent from work without
leave or permission or without giving any valid reason and there are many types of misconduct
stated in the General Orders where disciplinary action can be taken by the disciplinary board of
the respective Federal departments and agencies. He also said that the most common one is
disappearing from the workplace without applying for any leave or getting permission or without
good reasons.
To overcome this problem, he said that the first move is to issue advice and guidance
either orally or in writing to the teacher. And if the preliminary steps are ignored, action will be
taken against the person concerned. Issuing warning will be the first step followed by imposing
fines, revoking salary rights, withholding salary increment, salary reduction, demotion, and
dismissal.
Teacher absenteeism was rampant in Sabah's rural schools and there was no action had
been taken against the teachers involved. Numerous reports were received from parents of
students in rural schools that many teachers including principals are absent from classes for
1
weeks in a given month. The explanation given by the teachers was that they had to attend
meetings in the towns but the problem continues for months. Government and the Ministry of
Education need to solve the issue once and for all in order to improve the conditions of rural
school.
INTRODUCTION
Rates of employee absences and the effects of absences on productivity are topics of
conversation in many organizations. One reason is that high rates of employee absence may
signal weak management and poor labor-management relations. In the education sphere,
employee absenteeism is a special problem, not only in terms of the cost to the school (payment
to substitute teachers) but also the wasted education-time that is liable to impair the sense of
confidence that the general public has in the schools.
Students may eventually lose their desire to learn if the regular teacher is frequently
absent and the curriculum is delivered by an array of substitute teachers. In essence, teacher
absenteeism has important implications for school reform, teacher training, educational
leadership, and issues related to social justice aimed at promoting equity and excellence in the
schools (Bruno, 2002).
Teachers who take time off from work, due to sickness, present problems for school
principals, who must arrange for their work to be covered. Their absence has an impact on
students and other teachers, as well as on the funds available to schools (Bowers, 2001). Teacher
absenteeism is related both to student absenteeism and achievement. When a qualified educator
is away from the classroom, student achievement is negatively affected. Teachers are the
educational leaders in the classroom, and their roles cannot be compromised (Whitaker, 2001).
2
DEFINITION OF ABSENTEEISM
There are many variations to the definition of absenteeism. Defining absenteeism has not
changed much in recent years and one simple definition that is being used is that of
organizationally excused versus organizationally unexcused absences (Blau, 1985). The
definitions of excused absence include categories such as personal sickness, jury duty, religious
holidays, and funeral leave and transportation problems. Meanwhile, the unexcused absence
meaning absenteeism without an official or recognized (excused) reason, that occurs when an
employee fails to provide a satisfactory explanation for the absenteeism, or gives no reason at all
(Walfin, 1981). Below are the working definitions of absenteeism:
Based on Martocchio & Jimeno (2003), Absence constitutes a single day of
missed work.
Absence occurs whenever a person chooses to allocate time to activities that
compete with scheduled work, either to satisfy the waxing and waning of
underlying motivational rhythms (Fichman, 1984), or to maximize personal utility
(Chelius, 1981).
An individual’s lack of physical presence at a given location and time when there
is a social expectation for him or her to be there (Martocchio & Harrison, 1993).
Absenteeism refers to the non-attendance of employees for scheduled work
(Gibsson, 1966; John, 1978; Jones, 1971).
Hill and Thrist (1953; 1962) contributed a theory of absence as withdrawal from
the stress of work situations, claiming as evidence for this proposition certain
patterns of absence and accident rates recorded over a four-year period in a large
steel company.
3
Based on Chadwick-Jones, Brown, Nicholson, and Sheppard (1971), there are seven
indices of absenteeism were used namely:
1. Absence frequency;
2. Attitudinal absence;
3. Other reasons – number of days in a week for any reason other than holidays, rest days,
and certified sickness;
4. Worst day – difference score between number of individuals absent on any week’s ‘best’
and ‘worst’ days;
5. Time lost – number of days lost in a week for any reason other than leave;
6. Lateness – number of instances of tardiness in any week;
7. Blue Monday – number of individuals absent on a Monday minus number of individual
absent on Friday of any week.
OBJECTIVES
This research was done base on true experience as a teacher who are being placed in one
of the school in Penang Island. Below are the objectives of this study:
(a) To understand the phenomena of work absenteeism among teacher
(b) To relate the factors contribute to teacher absenteeism
(c) To investigate the impact of teacher absenteeism
(d) To discuss the solution and how to manage teacher absenteeism
4
LITERATURE REVIEW
Teacher absenteeism is a serious problem for school systems. According to Eby &
Freeman (1999), low commitment resulted in higher absenteeism rate. When employees are
absent, employers have to bear the costs associated with absenteeism at the workplace.
According to Zakaria (1988), absenteeism can be dysfunctional and financially costly. Firstly, it
could upset and disrupt the daily operations of an affected unit or organization. Then,
organizations have to bear the extensive cost of absenteeism, which includes both direct and
indirect cost such as lost of productivity, use of contingent workers, and overtime cost.
Although, there is no estimate on the cost implications of absenteeism in the educational
field in Malaysia, however, when teachers are absent from work, not only are replacement
teachers sought but these teachers have to be burdened with the workload of the absent teachers.
Problems also arise when the replacement teachers are not skilled or unfamiliar with the subject
taught giving rise to frustrations on the part of the students and the teachers concerned.
Eventually, they felt angry, exhausted and stressed giving rise to lower motivation, increased job
dissatisfaction and poor job performance. Thus, this kind of escape-avoidance behavior would
not be beneficial to any profession.
5
ORIGINS OF ABSENTEEISM
Harrison and Martocchio (1998) indicated five loosely defined classes of variable hypothesized
to be origins of absence which are:
a) Personality
Porter and Steers (1973) proposed that employees with extreme levels of emotional
instability, anxiety, low achievement orientation, aggression, independence, and
sociability were likely to be the most frequent absentees.
b) Demographics
The demographic variables were gender, age, tenure, education level and family
characteristics. The individual’s demographic characteristic (personal factors, family
characteristics) indirectly influence absenteeism through sets of medial variables such as
expectations and job satisfaction and proximal constructs which is attendance motivation
and ability to attend.
c) Attitudes
The main conceptual paradigm for absenteeism was to treat absence taking as individual-
level avoidance or withdrawal from a disliked work situation (Harison & Martocchio,
1998). However, Steers and Rhodes (1978) predicted that the effects of all other job-
related and organizational variables on absence would work their way through job
satisfaction.
d) Social contact
The influence of social context on absence is embodied in their conception of an absence
culture which is defined as “the set of shared understanding about absence legitimacy and
the established ‘custom and practice’ of employee absence behavior and its control”.
6
There are two factors shape absence cultures: (a) the values and beliefs of the larger
society and its subcultures, and (b) the unique set of beliefs bout shared by virtue of
membership in an organization.
e) Decision-making
Researchers have depicted absence as the result of a daily choice process. Employees are
assumed to make work attendance decisions in a way that strives toward utility
maximization, making themselves as happy as possible, given finite resources of time and
money (Ehrensberg & Smith, 1985).
CORRELATES OF TEACHER ABSENCE
What factors are correlated with teacher absence?
I. Teacher Characteristics
In our country, salaries are highly correlated with the teacher’s age, experience,
educational background, and rank such as head teacher status. Previous research reported that
there is little evidence to suggest that higher salaries are significantly associated with lower
absence. Head teachers are significantly more likely to be absent, and point estimates suggest
better-educated and older teachers are on average absent more often. The coefficients on teacher
characteristics suggest that along a number of dimensions, more powerful teachers are absent
more. Men are absent more often than women, and head teachers are absent more often than
regular teachers. In a number of cases, better-educated teachers appear to be absent more. These
teachers may be less subject to monitoring.
7
Theoretically, teachers from the local area might be absent less, because they care more
about their students or are easier to monitor, or absent more because they have more outside
opportunities and are harder to discipline with sanctions. Empirically, the previous research
found that teachers who were born in the district of the school are more likely to show up for
work. Local teachers are less likely to be absent and the coefficient for the combined sample is
also significantly negative.
II. School Characteristics
Working conditions can affect incentives to attend school, even where receipt of salary is
independent of attendance and hence provides no such incentive. School environment also
affects absences; elementary schools, larger schools, and higher-poverty schools tend to have
higher teacher absence rates. The size of a workplace seems to matter outside of education, too,
and researchers believe that the extent of interdependence among workers, which falls with the
size of a workplace, explains this relationship. And teachers are more likely to have more
absences if their colleagues are absent more often.
The lower teacher absence rate provides support for the idea that monitoring could affect
absence. For example, the intensity of administrative oversight by Ministry of Education officials
will give effect to the teacher attendance. Based on the previous study, it is proven that the
schools which are closer to a Ministry of Education office have significantly lower absence.
King and Ozler (2001) suggested that local control of schools may be associated with
better performance by teachers. One measure of the degree of community involvement in the
schools is the activity level of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA).
8
FACTORS CONTRIBUTE TO TEACHER ABSENCE
Why are teachers absent?
There are various reasons given for teacher absence. Prominent stated reasons
include teacher participation in educational workshops, in-service
training sometimes lasting for several weeks, personal problems,
traveling to administrative centers for salary compensation, and
casual leave. Pregnancy and housework may affect female teachers.
Sometimes the absences were due to teachers having to perform official duties away
from the school. For example in South Asian, teachers who are pulled away from classrooms to
take part in all sorts of government duties ranging from helping to conduct population census to
immunization campaigns, to assisting local politicians in various capacities. Regarding the issue
of being away “on official-leave”, even if these teachers are genuine on leave; it is surprising that
so many teachers would be on leave while school was in session.
Some research links poor physical school conditions to
absenteeism. Another aspect of absenteeism is refusal to take up
postings in desirable locations. For example, a significant number of
newly trained teachers every year refuse posting to rural schools, and many
of those who accept eventually will ask for a transfer to urban schools or quit
teaching.
Besides, work related stress is a major cause of occupational ill-health that may cause
sickness absence, high turnover and poor performance in school. The personal illness was not
9
the foremost reasons used when calling in sick. Family issues headed the list of all unscheduled
absence, followed by personal illness and personal needs. Moreover, teachers who engage in
private tutoring as a side occupation are less likely to be absent. This might reflect the fact that
teachers might be using class time to recruit clients for their private sessions.
However, the stated causes for teacher absenteeism often make the
fact that the institutional environment does not really require teachers’
constant presence. At the root are limited authority by schools, lack of
interest in enforcing sanctions, and the lack of parental involvement.
Absenteeism is often lower among female teachers, among teachers born in
the district where the school is located, among teachers who work in schools with
better infrastructure, and among teachers of children whose parents are more
literate. However, few studies have explicitly explored the linkages between
accountability and absenteeism.
Occupational stress has a more significance on the teachers’ professionalism, Stress level
among technical teachers in technical schools in three states, which are Johor, Malacca, and
Negeri Sembilan, there were five teacher stress sources that included in this study: pupil
misbehavior, teacher workload, time and resources difficulties, interpersonal relationships, and
recognition. Stress is one of the major factors contribute to teacher absenteeism.
IMPACT OF TEACHER ABSENTEEISM
The impact is educationally significant. Research shows that teachers are the most
important factor determining student achievement. Teachers’ absences affect student learning.
Teams of researchers from Duke and Harvard found that teacher absences significantly reduce
10
student achievement. To put the detrimental effects of teacher absence in terms of the well-
documented relationship between initial teaching experience and effectiveness, every 10
absences achievement lowers mathematics achievement by the same amount as having a teacher
with one year to two years of experience instead of a teacher with three years to five years of
experience.
Teacher absences hinder learning in important ways. Substitute teachers or relief teachers
are less qualified, on average, than regular teachers. In fact, most of the substitute teachers do not
require a bachelor’s degree. When the regular teacher is absent, academic instruction is almost
simply less intense. In fairness, substitutes are often constrained by low expectations and weak
organization on the part of the regular teacher.
Other problem is, when teachers are absent from work, not only are replacement teachers
sought but these teachers have to be burdened with the workload of the absent teachers.
Problems also arise when the replacement teachers are not skilled or unfamiliar with the subject
taught giving rise to frustrations on the part of the students and the teachers concerned.
Other teacher or relief teacher also busy with their subject or work and they are not able
to give full attention to the replacement class. Sometimes the relief teacher just come to the class
and monitors the class but not teaching. On the other hand, when there are no sufficient teachers
at that moment, the class will be abandon and any unwanted thing and tragedy can happen inside
the class such as bullying, out of control, vandalism, fighting and truancy problem.
Teacher absences also disrupt the routines and relationships that support learning. A
teacher may need to reallocate instructional time to review classroom rules and procedures upon
returning from an absence, perhaps in addition to having to perform a full re-teaching of the
lesson that was meant to occur on the day of the absence.
11
MANAGING TEACHER ABSENTEEISM
Teacher absenteeism is not a healthy practice and steps should be taken to manage it
effectively. There are few steps of keeping absenteeism to a minimum.
Increase salary: Salary increases may improve teacher attendance. Thus, they
may no longer have to work part-time or engaging in private tutoring as a side
occupation and are not being burdened with the workload, exhausted and stressed
which eventually giving rise to lower motivation and poor job performance.
Motivation: Keeping the teacher motivated and try making the school a fun place
to work is of the best way to encourage the teacher and reduce absenteeism.
Rewards or incentives schemes: Combinations of incentives could reduce levels
of teacher absence enough to pay for themselves. Teachers in Aldine, Texas, for
example, receive a bonus for excellent attendance record over a school year,
defined as two or fewer days of absence.
Create an Absenteeism Policy: Teachers respond to changes in absence-control
policies. For example, teachers who are required to report absences directly to
their principal by telephone are absent less often than teachers using impersonal
reporting systems. These insights show that while the causes are multi-
dimensional, policymakers do have the power to reduce absence rates.
12
Introduce a co-payment scheme: In America, teachers have to pay co-payments
for absences over and above the standard allocation, suggests that a more
complete implementation of co-payments could reduce students’ exposure to
teacher absences without costing districts more and without taking money out of
the average teacher’s pocket.
Bonuses: Teachers are also absent less often when bonuses are given for
exceptionally high attendance or schemes in which districts buy back unused sick
leave are available.
Counseling: The headmaster or the counselor should concern about the teacher at
the school especially those who are more often absent from work. They also
should give attention to all teachers in the school. These approaches can help the
school management solve the problem.
CONCLUSION
Teacher absences can cause financial difficulties. There is no easy solution to the
problem of supply cover costs, but more effective management can reduce negative impacts.
Absenteeism also a series issue that requires immediate attention by teacher, headmaster and
school management. Besides, new approach and improved policies around absence could reduce
students’ exposure to teacher absences while generating a net savings for employers. Teacher
absences also have a negative effect on student achievement.
13
REFERENCES
Blau, G. (1985). Relationships of extrinsic, intrinsic, and demographic predictors to
various types of withdrawal behaviours. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70, 442-450.
Bowers, T. (2001). Teacher Absenteeism and Ill-Health Retirement: A Review.
Cambridge Journal of Education 31.2
Bruno, J.E. (2002). The geographical distribution of teacher absenteeism in large urban
school district settings: Implications for school reform efforts aimed at promoting equity
and excellence in education. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 10 (32).
Chadwick-Jones, J.K., Brown, C.A., Nicholson, N., and Sheppard, C. (1971). Absence
measures: Their reliability and stability in an industrial setting. Personnel Psychology, 24,
463-470.
Chelius, J.R. (1981). Understanding absenteeism: The potential contribution of economic
theory. Journal of Business Research, 9, 409-418.
Daily Express (accessed April 20, 2006)
Eby, L.T., & Freeman, D.M. (1999). Motivational bases of affective organizational
commitment. A partial test of an integrative theoretical model. Journal of occupational &
Organizational Psychology, 72(4), 463-484.
14
Ehrensberg, R.G., & Smith, R.S. (1985). Modern labor economics (2nd ed.). Glenview,
IL: Scott Foresman.
Fichman, M. (1984). A theoretical approach toward understanding employee attendance.
In Goodman, P.S., & Atkin, R.S. (Eds), Absenteeism: New approaches to understanding,
measuring, and managing employee attendance (pp. 1-46). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Gibsson, J.O. (1966). Toward a conceptionalisation of absence behavior of personal in
organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 2, 107-133.
Harison, D.A., & Martocchio, J.J. (1998). The time for absenteeism: A 20-year review of
origins, offshoots, and outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 25, 305-350.
Hill, J.M.M., and Thrist E.L. (1955). A consideration of industrial accidents as a means
of withdrawal from the work situation. Human Relations, 6, 357-380.
John, G. (1978). Attitudinal and non-attitudinal predictors of two forms of absence from
work. Organizational Behaviour and Human Performance, 22, 431-444.
Jones, R.M. (1971). Absenteeism: Manpower papers no. 4. London: Her Majesty’s
Stationery Office.
King, E.M., and Ozler, B. (2001). “What’s decentralization got to do with learning endogenous
school quality and student performance in Nicaragua.” World Bank.
Martocchio, J.J., & Harrison, D.A. (1993). To be there or nor to be there? Questions,
theories, and methods in absence research. Research in Personal and Human Resources
Management, 11, 259-329.
Martocchio, J.J., & Jimeno, D.I. (2003). Employee absenteeism as an affective event.
Human Resources Management, 11, 259-329.
Porter, L.W., and Steers, R.M. (1973). Organizational, work, and personal factors in
employee turnover and absenteeism. Journal of Applied Psychology, 72, 275-286.
15
Press release entitle “PBS: Solve Teacher Absenteeism in Rural Schools” (accessed April
17, 2000)
Steers, R.M., & Rhodes, S.R., (1978). Major Influences on Employee Attendance: A
Process Model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 63 (4), 391-407.
Walfin (1981). The connection between absence and substitutions in Israeli industry.
Masters thesis, Tel-Aviv University (Hebrew).
Whitaker, C.S. (2001). The management of sickness absence. Occupational and
Environmental Medicine (58), 6, 420.
Zakaria, I. (1988). A study of factors affecting performance and absenteeism among
employees of a public service organization in Malaysia. Journal of Management, 6&7,
45-55.
16
17