A shock report has revealed that teacher absences in Northern Ireland classrooms last year cost the economy here £38 million – the equivalent of employing 1,735 full-time teachers.

The findings were part of the Northern Ireland Audit Office's report – 'The Management of Substitution Cover for Teachers' – which concluded that, on average, Northern Ireland's pupils spend about 10% of their school year being taught by teachers providing substitution cover.

In 2000-01 this was found to have cost £38 million – £10 million of this was spent providing cover for sickness absence, while in the same period, the sick pay bill for absent teachers amounted to more than £15 million.

Comparative data for Great Britain shows that Northern Ireland's schools have a much higher level of teacher sickness absence than the English regions. In 2000, on average, just over 10 working days were lost for every full-time teaching post in Northern Ireland compared to six days in England.

If teacher sickness absences in Northern Ireland were reduced to the levels in Great Britain (or by 40%), the report claims that pro-rata savings on substitute teachers would be of the order of £4 million.

In the course of its examination the Audit Office surveyed 100 schools, and 35 of the 66 schools (53%) indicated either that there were usually not enough or never enough good quality substitutes available.

The report also found that targets have not been established for reducing sickness absence either at the regional level or by all individual employing authorities. It was recommended that the sickness management strategies of the employing authorities should be based on the establishment of local patterns and trends in sickness absence.

The Audit Office also found that, in order to minimise teacher absences due to training, there was found to be scope for more innovation in its delivery – and seek new ways of applying available and developing information technology to meet training needs.

Stormont Public Accounts Committee member, John Dallat MLA, welcomed the report but said there was "frustration" that the job was not being done by locally elected representatives.

(GMcG)