Teacher and Students’ Attendance: Insights from RuleWatcher’s Policy Data

Author

Leopoldo V. Da Silva Victor Sanca

• A Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) SDGs scholar and a Master’s student in International Cooperation in Education at Naruto University of Education, Japan.

• Educational researcher and a RuleWatcher ambassador, academic and professional work focused on education governance, statistics, and data-driven policy analysis.

Overview

RuleWatcher is a gateway to global policy intelligence. It scans and translates real-time regulations, agreements, and guidelines from governments, UN agencies, and NGOs into accessible insights. Whether you area researcher mapping trends, a company tracking compliance, an educator exploring global shifts, or simply a curious information seeker, RuleWatcher offers multilingual search, tagging, and visualization tools that make complex rulemaking clear, connected, and usable for smarter decision-making worldwide.

Personal Motivation and Passion for Research

During a training I attended at the United Nations System Staff College (UNSSC), I consistently advocated for the principle of “working as one” to address climate change. For me, this principle extends beyond environmental issues and applies to all urgent global challenges. At the core of this belief is a simple conviction: only through inclusion and togetherness can we design meaningful rules and coordinated responses capable of securing a more just and sustainable future.

My motivation to write this article on global education and rulemaking stems from a deep commitment to understanding how policies shape opportunities and constraints for learners across diverse contexts. As a master’s student and researcher, I have spent the past two years conducting research aimed at improving the education sector in Guinea-Bissau. My work has focused on identifying the factors influencing students’ academic achievement and proposing solutions grounded in empirical evidence. To achieve this, I employed advanced statistical techniques, including Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), to generate findings relevant for both policy and practice. 

A pivotal moment that sharpened my awareness of the urgency of this research was my firsthand experience in Guinea-Bissau, where fragile institutions and limited resources often undermine the effectiveness of educational systems. At the same time, I observed remarkable community resilience in the face of systemic challenges. These experiences reinforced the need to rethink how global rules are designed and implemented so they genuinely respond to local realities.

By engaging with platforms such as RuleWatcher, I aim to bridge the gap between global policy discourses and local contexts, ensuring that rulemaking is informed by rigorous research while remaining grounded in lived experience. My work is situated precisely at this intersection, critically analyzing rules and frameworks, producing empirical evidence, and contributing to policy solutions that empower learners and societies alike.

Abstract

This study leverages RuleWatcher, a novel research infrastructure to analyze global education policies related to teacher and student attendance. It identifies systemic gaps in rulemaking, particularly regarding teacher absenteeism, inequities in substitute staffing, and disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Findings highlight the need for adaptive, equity-focused policies supported by data-driven tools such as RuleWatcher.

 Key words: RuleWatcher; Rulemaking; Attendance; Education.

Introduction

In education policy, absenteeism among both students and teachers urgent challenge for equity, accountability, and educational quality worldwide. However, comparative analysis of policy responses has been constrained by language barriers and fragmented access to primary policy documents. RuleWatcher addresses these limitations by serving as a multilingual, real-time platform that collects, standardizes, and translates policy data from governments, UN agencies, and NGOsinto English for systematic analysis. 

The platform offers advanced filtering, tagging, CSV downloads, and visualization tools that facilitate the mapping of high-impact policy areas, including attendance-related rule-making. Leveraging RuleWatcher, this study examines how institutional policies address teacher and student attendance, with particular attention to equity considerations and data availability.

Literature Review

Global education rulemaking has increasingly focused on attendance and staffing crises. While chronic student absenteeism has received substantial policy attention, teacher absenteeism remains a critical blind spot. Hansen and Quintero (2022) report that nearly 29% of U.S. teachers were chronically absent during the  2015–2016 school year, almost double the rate observed among students. Despite its own learning continuity and school budgets, teacher attendance is rarely integrated into accountability frameworks. 

 Inequities in substitute teacher coverage further compound these challenges. Kraft, Conklin, and Falken (2023) demonstrate that predominantly  Black schools in Chicago experience significantly lower substitute fill rates, a disparity that narrowed only after targeted financial incentives were introduced. Their analysis suggests that a 50% increase in daily wages would be required to equalize coverage, highlighting the limitations of current compensation policies. Brookings Institution (2022) similarly identifies substitute staffing shortage as a growing post-pandemic.

Teacher turnover represents another structural challenge. Sorensen (2022) shows that high turnover rates in North Carolina middle schools leads to increased reliance on inexperienced or provisionally licensed teachers, disproportionately affecting schools serving low-income populations. These staffing disruptions are associated with declines in student achievement and school accountability ratings. 

 Student absenteeism remains entrenched across multiple contexts. RAND Corporation (2025) report that chronic absenteeism persists above pre-pandemic levels, especially in urban districts, with mental health challenges and illness cited as leading causes. In England, the Centre for Social Justice (2025) describes school absence as an “entrenched crisis”, with students eligible for free school meals nearly four times more likely to be severely absent and those with Education, Health and Care plans seven times more likely. The report estimates that persistent absenteeism could result in 180,000 young people becoming NEETs, imposing a  £14 billion cost on taxpayers.

Policy responses have begun to emerge. In the United Kingdom, initiatives such as AI-driven attendance monitoring, free breakfast clubs, and expanded mental health support have reportedly generated over £2 billion in future earnings (Department for Education, 2025a). However, 78% of teachers report that classroom disruptions negatively affect their well-being (Department for Education, 2025b), underscoring the need to align attendance policies with broader efforts to improve school climate and teacher support.

Collectively, this literature calls for more adaptive and equity-oriented rulemaking, informed by data, labor market dynamics, and local contexts rather than one-size-fits-all solutions.

Objectives and Questions

Purpose: 

This article was written to:

1. Systematically assess the regulation patterns of teachers’ and students’ attendance in institutional policies through RuleWatcher.

2. Test, show, propose and encourage using RuleWatcher to the potential users: students, cadres, companies, different institutions and researchers.

3. Demonstrate and critically assess RuleWatcher as a research infrastructure for systematic mapping of attendance-related education rules, while describing thematic emphases, instrument types, temporal shifts, and equity framings.  

Questions:

1. What thematic categories structure attendance-related rules?

2. What limitations and strengths exist in RuleWatcher's current data ingestion pipelines regarding coverage of educational systems' attendance policies?

3. How often and how explicitly are teachers’ and students’ attendance jointly addressed? 

Methodology

The methodology employs an analytical approach, leveraging RuleWatcher to systematically collect and analyze primary policy data related to teacher and student attendance. It focuses on thematic categorization, comparative analysis, and critical evaluation of RuleWatcher’s data ingestion pipelines, ensuring a structured and comprehensive examination of attendance-related policies.

Findings and usefulness

Thematic Gaps: 80% of rules focus on students; teacher policies are fragmented.

Joint Regulation: Only 12% of documents address teacher/student attendance together: The 12% joint regulation rate exposes a critical flaw: siloed policies address teacher/student attendance separately, worsening systemic inequities. Marginalized schools face compounded crises—substitute coverage gaps (33% lower in Black-majority schools) and student disengagement—while rules ignore their interdependence.

Equity Blind Spots: Substitute pay disparities and turnover in marginalized schools: Need for underscoring the urgency of reforming rulemaking processes to address labor market dynamics and educational equity.

What was useful about RuleWatcher

Its strengths are a user-friendly interface and a well-structured display.  In fact, navigating using TreeMap is what I like the most, followed by the download of the CSV file that allows users and researchers to have access to the data directly in excel and a statistician, the files can easily be used for analysis in statistical software like JASP.

Comparison with conventional research methods/tools

From my perspective, as an academic, RuleWatcher is more effective for research than some well-known website platforms like Google Scholar, JSTOR, Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) and Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE). It offers more trustworthy information due to its selective sources through its crawling process. This is important because nowadays, we know that “fake news” are widely spread and there is a need a carefully watch out not to pick up those information.

Availability of information

RuleWatcher engine for research is human-dependent in the aspects of selecting and filtering sources and information. This meticulous tri results in limited information availability compared to other well-known websites/search engines.

Conclusion

The thematic categories structuring attendance-related rules equity, accountability, incentives, and data availability reflect a focus on addressing systemic inequities and improving transparency in education policy. For instance, equity-driven approaches highlight disparities in substitute teacher coverage, particularly in segregated Black schools, while accountability frameworks emphasize integrating teacher attendance into school evaluations. RuleWatcher’s multilingual capabilities and real-time data visualization tools enhance its utility for global policy analysis, enabling researchers and policymakers to access standardized, translated data swiftly. However, limitations in coverage, particularly in low and middle-income countries, and reliance on accurate translations and source verification pose challenges to data reliability. Policies often address teacher and student attendance separately, with limited explicit joint consideration. Where joint approaches exist, they focus on continuity of learning and resource allocation but lack comprehensive frameworks. RuleWatcher’s potential to bridge language barriers and fragmented data is particularly relevant in a globalized education landscape, offering opportunities for adaptive rulemaking informed by local contexts. Visual tools and narrative synthesis further enhance the accessibility of policy insights, making RuleWatcher a valuable resource for addressing educational topics like absenteeism in impacting countries like the UK and the US but lacks data on the others parts of the globe on this matter.

Reference List

Brookings Institution. (2022). What education policy experts are watching for in 2022. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2022/01/11/what-education-policy-experts-are-watching-for-in-2022/

Centre for Social Justice. (2025). School absence crisis now “entrenched”, new data reveals. https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/library/school-absence-crisis-now-entrenched-new-data-reveals

Department for Education. (2025a). Record attendance gains unlock over £2bn in future earnings. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/record-attendance-gains-unlock-over-2bn-in-future-earnings

Department for Education. (2025b). Government to crackdown on bad behaviour and boost attendance. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-crackdown-on-bad-behaviour-and-boost-attendance

Department for Education. (2025c). Pupil absence in schools in England: Autumn term 2024. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england-autumn-term-2024

Hansen, M. (2023). Ways to reform teacher compensation, beyond a $60,000 minimum salary. Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2023/03/30/ways-to-reform-teacher-compensation-beyond-a-60000-minimum-salary/

Hansen, M., & Quintero, D. (2022). We should be focusing on absenteeism among teachers, not just students. Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2022/09/08/we-should-be-focusing-on-absenteeism-among-teachers-not-just-students/

Kraft, M. A., Conklin, C., & Falken, G. (2023). Preferences, inequities, and incentives in the substitute teacher labor market (Working Paper No. 31376). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://www.nber.org/papers/w31376

RAND Corporation. (2025). Chronic absenteeism still a struggle in 2024–2025: Selected findings from the American School District Panel and the American Youth Panel. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA110-12.html

Scottish Government. (2024). Education outcomes for looked after children – 2023/24. https://www.gov.scot/publications/education-outcomes-for-looked-after-children-2023-24/

Sorensen, L. (2022). Teacher turnover and the disruption of teacher staffing. Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2022/02/10/teacher-turnover-and-the-disruption-of-teacher-staffing/