Buried in paperwork, teachers don't have time to teach, says survey

A survey of 13,000 teachers across New South Wales has found that educators are struggling to prepare for lessons because they’re so overloaded with administrative tasks.

The time that teachers would like to be spending engaging with parents and carers, collaborating on curriculum development and undertaking professional development is instead being devoted to data collection, data entry and programming compliance, the survey found.

Presented at the annual NSW Teachers Federation conference, the survey revealed the unhappiness of teachers so overloaded by admin tasks that their passion for teaching is threatened. According to the Federation, the survey results are consistent with Australian teacher workforce data released in June, which indicated that among teachers considering leaving the profession, “not enjoying teaching” was the reason given by fewer than 20 per cent.

The same workforce data revealed that 75 per cent of teachers who said they were considering another career cited “workload” as the main reason they’d look for the exit.

“It’s now taking longer to document a lesson than to teach it,” NSW Teachers Federation deputy president Amber Flohm said. “Teachers are spending their evenings and weekends completing paperwork that serves no educational purpose while having no time for professional development that would genuinely improve their practice.”

The Teachers Federation argues that compliance and administrative demands should be reduced to statutory minimums, as a way of helping to address teacher shortages.

“Teachers don't want to be delivery agents for someone else’s materials,” she said. “They want time to do the creative, intellectual work of adapting learning to their students in front of them and their specific needs.”