AMENDED ON 14.06.2018 TO POST QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Teachers attending classes, and engaging in effective teaching, is a critical prerequisite to educating school-going children. Recent evidence show rates of teachers’ time-on-task is less than half of contracted teaching time in some settings of sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, there remains only a limited evidence base on how policies and practices, at various level of the education system, influence teacher absenteeism.

UNICEF, along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Ministry of Education (MoE), aims to undertake a study that will deepen the understanding of the determinants of primary teacher attendance and motivation to teach, related to both extrinsic and intrinsic incentives, in Kenya.

By using a multilevel concept of teacher absenteeism and qualitative research methods, the study aims to identify bottlenecks in various types of primary teacher absenteeism (i.e., absent from school, absent from classroom, absent from teaching, and absent from pedagogy and content knowledge).

This qualitative study on teacher absenteeism in Kenya is one part of a multi-country regional research project in South East Africa. The final output of the multi-country project on teacher absenteeism will be practical recommendations for systemic policy reform tailored to each of the participating countries, including strategies to make positive impacts on teacher-student interaction time and in-class learning as a means of boosting levels of school quality and student achievements.

To meet the aims of this project, UNICEF is seeking a constitutional consultancy of a Qualitative Research Team to undertake data collection and fieldwork in Kenya.