All political parties ‘falling short of solving unnecessary teacher workload’
Teachers don’t have that much confidence in any of the major political parties when it comes to solving one of the most contentious, long-standing problems in education - teacher workload.
A new survey from TES shows that over half of teachers are of the opinion that policies put forward by the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens do not offer any real solutions.
Of all the parties, Labour presently is the one that most teachers (20 per cent) believe offers some good ideas as to how best cut unnecessary workload in the profession.
This is followed by the Greens on 15 per cent, with the current coalition partners, the Tories and the Lib Dems, trailing behind at four per cent each.
TES’ survey results are telling because it suggests that the government has been wide off the mark with its response to this, which it documented in its paper the Government Response to the Workload Challenge.
Back in October 2014, the deputy prime minister Nick Clegg and the education secretary called on teachers to have their say about the challenges they face as professionals when it comes to workload.
A massive 44,000 people responded and the results were analysed. Based on these findings, the government came up with some solutions, including reducing the amount of curriculum changes that can be made during an academic year.
“But the proposals were panned by five of the main classroom and headteachers’ unions and responses from more than 200 teachers on the TES political panel suggest this feeling is shared by the wider workforce,” the education news provider stated.
In their foreword to the government report, which was released last month, Mr Clegg and Ms Morgan said: “We have listened to what teachers have said to us, and we hope that this plan for action will start to address the complex issues which have led to unnecessary workload.
“There isn’t a single answer to these problems and not everything can be achieved overnight, but we want the changes to be real, lasting, and genuinely make a difference to teachers and their pupils.”
