Student Attendance
Learners - Practice Indicator
Essence
This indicator measures student attendance as one proxy for learner preparedness.
Indicator
Percentage of students who are present in their classroom during an unannounced visit. This indicator is disaggregated by the student’s gender and urban/rural location.
Background
It is fundamental that children arrive to school ready to learn for learning to take place. While the Capacity for Learning indicator captures an aspect of readiness by measuring skills of 1st-graders, this indicator takes a step back and reports on students’ actual presence in the classroom. Not only are millions of children still not enrolled in primary school, but in some countries this is compounded by the problem of chronic absenteeism among the enrolled student body. A child absent from school is a child not able to learn. There could be a variety of reasons for student absenteeism, ranging from health and nutrition problems to safety concerns. What is certain is that student absenteeism is much higher among students of low socioecomic backgrounds, and that such absenteeism has an impact on learning outcomes even after controlling for socioeconomic status (OECD 2016; Garcia & Weiss 2018; Wilson et al. 2008).
The reported indicator therefore uses student presence as a proxy for students’ readiness to learn.
School Survey
Instrument Used for Measurement
Measurement Approach
During the school survey visit, an enumerator visits a randomly selected 4th-grade class and calculates the share of students present by comparing the number of children present to the number of children on the roster.
The resulting number is an estimate, given that in some countries there will be inconsistencies between the number of children supposed to attend and the number of children enrolled. For instance, there might be cases where children who attend regularly are not actually officially enrolled, which could lead us to overestimate student attendance.
Instrument Sources
Newly Developed