A total of 49 per cent male teachers and 48 per cent female teachers in the Volta region were absent from school in 2013.
Mr Bright Dey, Acting Director of Planning at the Volta Regional Education Directorate, who made this known on Wednesday, said in one of the schools a teacher missed school 38 times out of the 51 teaching days.
Mr Dey described the rate of teacher absenteeism in the region as “unacceptable.”
He was presenting reports on the National Education Assessment (NEA), Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) and Early Grade Mathematics Assessment (EGMA) at a forum in Ho.
Mr Dey said teachers could only be granted permission for three days in a term and wondered what the headteachers of the schools were doing.
He said the Regional Directorate of Education had more findings in the “Schools Report Card” and was going to implement sanctions where necessary.
According to him, the situation was one of the causes of the poor academic performance of children in the region and charged teachers to make good use of contact hours with children.
Mr Dey said the EGRA report indicated that 79 per cent of children in the region could not read and understand the Ewe Language, while 86 per cent could not read and understand English language.
For the National Education Assessment, he said only 41 per cent of pupils in primary three were proficient in Mathematics and 38 per cent of pupils in primary six.
Mr Dey said 44 per cent of pupils were proficient in English Language as against 49 per cent of pupils in primary six.
He therefore asked teachers to wake up and justify government’s investment in them.
During an open forum, some teachers said the schools lacked teaching and learning materials.
Mr Emmanuel Adegbedzi, a teacher at Ho Model School said some schools were still without registers, chalks and other teaching materials.
Mrs Dora Humado, Ho Municipal Director of Education said the forum was to help to identify the causes of the fallen standard of education in the municipal area.
Only 12 candidates in the region had aggregate six in the 2013 Basic Education Certificate Education (BECE), with six of the candidates coming from the Ho Municipal area.