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Media Release Teachers spend slightly less time on their activities overall, but much less time on teaching than policy requires. There is a serious erosion of instructional time in the majority of schools, but it is worst in rural and semi-rural African schools. Reasons for the shorter teaching time, among others, range from large classes and all that that implies, increased workload due to lack of administrative support in schools, and increased administrative demands placed on them by outcomes-based education (OBE) assessments. Many teachers are also expected to do work of clerks and fundraise at the same time. These are some of the results in the Educator Workload Report, by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) on the hours that educators actually spend on their various activities. Dr Linda Chisholm a research director at the HSRC, is the main author of the report. The Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) commissioned the report to establish to what extent OBE, continuous assessment (CASS) and other factors might contribute to educator workload and the number of hours they spend on their activities. The study is based on a nationally representative questionnaire-based survey in 900 schools and case studies in ten schools. NATIONAL POLICY National policy expects educators to spend a maximum of 1 720 hours on their various activities per year, or a 43 hours working week and an 8.6 hr working day, excluding weekends and school holidays. The formal school day is expected to be 7 hours, and the formal school week, 35 hours. This means that educators are expected to spend some time (8 hours over the week) outside formal school hours on their activities. Heads of department and teachers are required to spend a minimum of 85% of their time teaching. The report distinguishes between teaching and other school-related activities such as preparation and planning, assessment, extra-mural activities, management and supervision, professional development, pastoral duties, guidance and counselling and administration FINDINGS Increased workload
About three in four educators feel that their workload has increased ‘a lot’ since 2000. Three quarters felt that the Integrated Quality Management System (IQMS) had increased workload and more than 90% felt the new curriculum and continuous assessment requirements had done so. Different issues impact differently on different schools. And different schools and educators are able to meet multiple new external requirements and teaching commitments to varying degrees of success. One major conclusion of this study is that those schools most in need of improvement are least able to respond to new external requirements. Gap between national policy and practice
An analysis of the time-diary filled in by a nationally representative sample of 3909 educators reveals that: Educators spend less time overall on their activities than the total number of hours specified by policy; whereas policy expects 1 720 hours (translated into 43 hours per week or 8.6 hours per day in a 5-day week) to be spent on all activities, educators on average spend 1 599 hours per year, 41 hours per week and 8.2 hours per day on all their school-related activities; Educators also spend less time in actual teaching or instruction than is specified in policy. Whereas policy expects educators to spend between 64% and 79% of the 35 hour week on teaching, the average time that teachers actually spend on teaching is 46% of the 35 hour week, or 41% of their total school-related time, an average of 3.2 hours a day. On average, more than half of teachers’ working week is taken up in administration and non-administration-related activities. National averages and trends
A summary of the average hours that educators reported as spending on their different activities shows that: Educators in South Africa spend an average 41 hours working per week – and not 43 hours, as is expected; An average of 16 hours per week is spent teaching (or 3.2 hours a day) out of an expected range of between 22½ – 27½ hours per week; the remaining 25 hours is spent on administration and non-administration-related activities such as extra-mural studies; During the formal school day, when all the work of educators is taken together, management and supervision, assessment and evaluation and extra-curricular activities are amongst the most significant activities that crowd out teaching; Educators spend progressively less time on teaching and other school-related activities as the week progresses, with very little teaching occurring on Fridays in many schools. National averages mask significant variations
There is also significant evidence that schools and educators vary considerably in terms of how they respond to and manage different pressures. The national averages mask some very important differences: Significant differences exist between urban, semi-rural and rural areas – generally educators in urban areas spend more time on teaching and administration than their counterparts in rural areas; educators spend a total of 38.3 hours on their work in rural areas, 41.5 hours in semi-rural areas and 43.8 hours in urban areas. The general decline in time spent across the week is strongest amongst educators in rural areas; History matters. Significant differences exist between former white, Indian, coloured, African and new schools established since 1994 in terms of time spent on teaching and other activities. Generally, educators in former white schools spend more time over the week on teaching (19.11 hours) and other activities than educators in former African (15.18 hours) and new schools established since 1994. School size matters. The larger the school, the less teaching, and the more administration demands there are. Class size is significant. Educators with larger classes spend less time on their different activities than educators in small classes who spend more time on their different activities. This suggests that the requirements of teaching and administration are simply overwhelming for educators with large classes. Gender matters. Females spend less time overall than men on their tasks, but more time than men during formal school hours in core activities of teaching, preparation and planning. Males spent more time than females on non-core and non-administration-related activities. Significant differences exist in relation to age, experience and qualifications, phase and learning areas taught. Gap between experience of workload and actual time-on-teaching
The case studies compared teachers’ formal allocation of teaching time as represented in their timetables with how much time was spent engaged in instruction. Vast discrepancies arose in most schools, with some teachers spending only 14%, 13% and 10% of allocated teaching time engaged in instructional practice. The case studies showed that a variety of formal and informal activities crowd out instructional time. As in the survey, the erosion of instructional time was most severe in former African (DET) schools, and the former coloured (HOR) and Indian (HOD) secondary schools. In former primary HOD and HOR schools and at the former white (HOA) and independent schools, more time was spent on instruction. Ironically, it is precisely those policies that attempt to guarantee that instruction and assessment takes place, that undermine instructional time. This was evident in particular when teachers used class time to complete administrative tasks. RECOMMENDATIONS Changing policy will not necessarily solve these problems, and indeed policy overload recommends strongly against any new policies being introduced to solve these problems.
Several recommendations flow from the findings. These include the need to: protect teaching time and emphasize the role of teachers as teachers; reduce class sizes; improve administrative support to schools; reduce the number of learning areas in curriculum, especially where there are no trained teachers – economic and management sciences & technology; reduce required assessment and recording and reporting procedures; consider reviewing the IQMS in three years’ time to see whether workload has reduced over time or not; align different policies with respect to instructional time, such that clarity is achieved around how much time teachers are expected to spend teaching.
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