Created on: 05 Nov 2024
The SU4QE campaign seeks to address workload by:
There are two significant updates to on national activity to report from last week.
The EIS met with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and lead civil servants on 29th October to discuss the findings of the Independent Workload Report published in June and shared with all stakeholders. The Report’s authors also attended the meeting.
The lead author, Professor Moira Hulme, set out the key findings - that on average Scottish teachers work more than an extra 11 hours per week unpaid; and that the two main drivers of workload are personalised planning for more diverse learner needs, and an increase in behavioural and attendance issues.
The researchers were able to clarify in response to Scottish Government questions that the high workload experienced by teachers is a national issue, across all sectors and all local authorities, and that the high average number of extra hours worked per week is not driven by a few "outlier" local authorities.
The discussion also focussed on the utility of the research data to teachers when discussing workload with their local authority; the impact of the pandemic; the workload of early career teachers; international comparisons on class contact time; 'electronic interruptions' from school email and WhatsApp groups; the attractiveness of teaching as a career and the ‘dysfunctional retention’ of exhausted teachers; and personal reflections from teachers in the research interviews.
The Scottish Government stated that the report’s evidence, obtained through a high participation rate, was “compelling” and “consistent” with earlier workload findings, accurate and representative of the whole workforce.
The General Secretary stressed that the report concluded "that core activities - planning, preparation and marking - cannot be accomplished in contractual hours" in the current conditions, and pushed the Scottish Government to address workload by delivering on the manifesto pledges to reduce weekly contact by 90 minutes and recruit 3500 additional teachers.
The Cabinet Secretary said that swift progress needed to be made on delivering the 90 minutes’ reduction in weekly class contact to alleviate teacher workload and that she would seek to engage further with COSLA on this, with the Independent Report supporting discussions.
At its meeting on 31st October, the EIS Salaries Committee agreed that further protracted delay in the implementation of the manifesto commitment to reduce teacher class contact time to 21 hours is unacceptable - teachers have been struggling long enough with intolerable workloads.
Meanwhile thousands of teachers struggle to obtain permanent contracts or a sufficient number of days’ work each month to make ends meet.
The Committee agreed that the General Secretary would write to the Scottish Government pressing for a swift follow up meeting with the Cabinet Secretary, civil servants and COSLA on the Independent Workload Report; and that the Report would also be tabled at a specially convened meeting of the SNCT Teachers’ Panel to take place early in December.
This meeting will discuss the Teachers' Side next steps in light of the findings of the Independent Report, in the event that a plan for implementation of the manifesto commitment to reduce workload is not presented in the coming weeks.