SCORES of Irish teachers are set to join their colleagues on picket lines across England next month after the country’s largest teaching union voted for more strikes.
The National Union of Teachers agreed to the walkout at its conference in Brighton last month, claiming teachers are suffering under unmanageable workloads.
The move follows a number of strikes over the past 12 months and comes as hundreds of Irish teachers come to work in Britain every year due to a jobs shortage at home.
In interviews with The Irish Post, several Irish teachers confirmed the NUT’s stark claims of educators’ 60-hour weeks and huge pressure from Ofsted, the schools watchdog.
A London-based primary school teacher currently on maternity leave said the workload has forced her to consider quitting the profession.
“I only have one child and if I want to have another I do not see how I could do it because of the amount of hours you have to put in,” she explained.
“Before I went on maternity leave I was in school every morning from about seven and I would not be leaving until about six in the evening and then having a few hours’ work to do on top of that when I got home.”
Meanwhile, a deputy head at another London primary school blamed the heavy workload on increasing amounts of paperwork required by school inspectors.
“I have been teaching here for nine years and to me the biggest change in education here has been the complete over-reliance on data to judge schools,” he said.
“In England there is far too much unnecessary paperwork. Education has been over-complicated and the focus has switched from being an inspirational teacher to being a data-analyser.”
According to a Government survey, primary school teachers in England work an average of 59.3 hours per week and secondary school teachers work 55.7 hours.
NUT general secretary Christine Blower says teachers are being driven out by low pay and heavy workloadsSpeaking at the NUT conference, the union’s general secretary blamed workloads for driving huge numbers of newly qualified teachers out of the profession.
“According to Ofsted, two in five teachers leave the profession within five years of starting teaching,” said Christine Blower. “Ministers must act on workload, as well as pay and pensions to halt this.”
Claiming that education secretary Michael Gove would be to blame if the strikes went ahead, she added: “Teacher morale is at a dangerously low ebb. Changes to pay, pensions and a working week for many teachers of 60 hours are driving many out of the classroom.”
Responding to Ms Blower’s comments, a Leinster man said he had seen “many teachers come in and go out” during his four years working at a secondary school in Liverpool.
“I sometimes ask myself am I better off doing something else,” he added.
“I don’t find the teaching stressful, just the workload and the amount of silly time-consuming work we have to do just to tick off the boxes.
“The main reasons I think about leaving teaching are poor behaviour in school, high workload and pressure from higher management to adapt to changes in the curriculum.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Education claimed the strikes would “disrupt parents’ lives, hold back children’s education and damage the reputation of the profession”.
He also said teachers should work with school leaders to manage their workload.
“We know that the vast majority of our teachers and school leaders are hardworking and dedicated professionals,” the spokesperson added.
“That is why we are giving teachers more freedoms than ever and cutting unnecessary paperwork and bureaucracy.
“In fact, teaching has never been more attractive, more popular or more rewarding. A record number of top graduates are now applying to become teachers and there have never been more teachers in England’s classrooms, with a rise of 9,000 in the last year.”
Buy this week’s Irish Post (out Wednesday) for an in-depth look at what Irish men and women say about their experiences of teaching in Britain
