Teacher workload has increased significantly in recent years and administrative duties are deflecting from the core roles of classroom teaching and learning, according to the findings of a new survey by the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI). The online survey of 545 teachers was carried out by the union in March.
96% of teachers agreed that their workload had increased significantly in recent years, while 97% agreed that they have an increasing amount of work to take home, which impacts on personal time.
Perhaps most telling is a qualitative section which asked teachers to identify issues of most concern in terms of workload. The burden of ever-increasing administrative/bureaucratic duties and usage of the so-called Croke Park and Haddington Road hours repeatedly cropped up as areas of key concern.
TUI’s Annual Congress takes place in Wexford next week.
Commenting on the findings, TUI General Secretary John MacGabhann said:
‘This survey clearly shows that teacher workload has increased significantly in recent years. In addition, it provides further evidence that classroom teachers are being deflected on a daily basis from their core duties of teaching and learning.
Findings illustrate that the work of teachers has become excessively administrative in nature, with an ever-increasing raft of legal and reporting demands. 88% of teachers listed administrative duties as having increased as a proportion of workload over the last five years, with 89% recording an increase in workload relating to participation in school development planning. 92% of teachers logged an increase in working outside of timetabled hours.
The results will come as little surprise to teachers. Schools have been hit with a series of cutbacks over the last seven years. The pupil-teacher-ratio has been worsened, middle-management structures have been substantially dismantled and supports and programmes that benefited vulnerable students have been abolished or cut back. In addition to damaging the service to students, these anti-educational measures have increased teacher workload and have diminished schools’ effectiveness.
On top of this, the volume of legal and reporting demands imposed on teachers has grown exponentially. Indeed, capacity at teacher and school levels to deal with new additional work was among the key factors for teachers in giving an overwhelming mandate for industrial action against the roll-out of the Framework for Junior Cycle. Quite simply, teachers can give no more.
Teachers are also frustrated and disillusioned by the extra hours required under the Croke Park and Haddington Road Agreements and their current usage.
In terms of timetabled hours, it is already clear that Irish teachers work far above the OECD average. The number of teaching hours per annum for Irish second level teachers is 735, which is far in excess (9%) of the OECD average of 675 (OECD lower secondary average: 694; OECD upper secondary average: 655). By way of a local comparison, the number of teaching hours per annum in England is 692 hours, or 6% less.
Ultimately, students lose out when time is stolen from teaching and learning. If the country truly aspires to providing a world class education system, teachers must be relieved of the intolerable, intrusive and frequently unnecessary administrative burden that has accumulated over recent years. Excessive form-filling and box-ticking are a damaging distraction from the traditional, core values of teaching.’