This survey is the first detailed study on the phenomena of teacher absenteeism in Indonesia obtained from two unannounced visits to 147 sample schools in October 2002 and March 2003. The study was conducted by the SMERU Research Institute and the World Bank, affiliated with the Global Development Network (GDN). Similar surveys were carried out at the same time in seven other developing countries: Bangladesh, Ecuador, India, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Uganda, and Zambia. This research focuses on primary school teacher absence rates and their relations to individual teacher characteristics, conditions of the community and its institutions, and the education policy at various levels of authority. A teacher was considered as absent if at the time of the visit the researcher could not find the sample teacher in the school. This survey was conducted in randomly selected 10 districts/cities in four Indonesian regions: Java-Bali, Sumatera, Kalimantan-Sulawesi, and Nusa Tenggara.
