Teachers are overloaded: a survey showed what duties educators perform outside of school lessons

Educators note that in the conditions of martial law, the heads of educational institutions and some teachers, in addition to their usual job duties, have additional ones, such as staying with children in a shelter during an air raid, even after the end of classes, duty in an invincibility point, etc. All this creates excessive burden on them and contributes to professional burnout, which encourages them to leave the profession. This was reported by educational ombudsman Nadiya Leshchyk, reports UNN.

In addition to conducting lessons, teachers perform many other tasks, both provided for and not provided for by job duties. Article 24 of the Law of Ukraine "On Complete General Secondary Education" states that the working time of a pedagogical worker includes the time necessary for him to perform educational, upbringing, methodological, organizational work and other pedagogical activities provided for by the employment contract and/or job description

She adds that as an educational ombudsman, she is working to relieve educators of unnecessary duties. In order to study the problem of overload in more detail, the Educational Ombudsman Service, together with the Public Organization "Center for Innovative Education "Pro.Svit", conducted two separate surveys.

They concerned the duration of working hours of heads of educational institutions, their deputies and teachers. As well as – job duties that take up most of their time, duties outside the job description that they perform and how much time it takes, and other questions.

The surveys are not representative, but provide an understanding of the approximate situation and problems regarding the overload of managers and teachers, the ombudsman noted.

In the first publication, which concerns the survey, Leshchyk outlined the results of the survey on the duties performed by teachers outside of lessons.

We offered them a list of responsibilities with the possibility to add those that are not listed, as well as the choice of several answer options (therefore, the total amount of answers exceeds 100%)

List of responsibilities performed by teachers

Among the most common out-of-class activities, which were mentioned by almost all teachers surveyed:

• professional development – 360 (91.14%);

• participation in pedagogical councils, methodological associations, commissions, etc. – 340 (86.07%);

• filling out the class journal – 340 (86.07%);

• participation in conferences, seminars, master classes, etc. – 330 (83.55%);

• preparation for lessons, in particular the necessary equipment and materials for the lesson (equipment for laboratory work, cards, etc.) – 329 (83.29%);

• communication with individual parents – 328 (83.04%);

• filling out documentation – 303 (76.71%);

• communication with individual students – 301 (76.2%).

In the next publication, we will talk in more detail about what duties not provided for by the job description are performed by pedagogical workers of secondary education institutions

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