This week The Central App has published a number of articles highlighting overworked and stressed educators, with little being done to alleviate the problem. 

Results from New Zealand Education Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa’s 2020 Health and Wellbeing Survey show that workload related stress for both principals and teachers is at a level far exceeding the general population.

The survey, conducted by members of Research for Educational Impact (REDI), based at Deakin University, Melbourne, gathered data from 2415 primary school teachers and 473 principals across Aotearoa.

I thoroughly believe more needs to be done to support teachers in the way of work/life balance and mental health.

From those I have personally spoken to, they universally tell me they are overworked and under-supported in their roles. 

NZEI Te Riu Roa President Liam Rutherford says the results are unsurprising and reiterates the urgent need for more staffing resources in the sector.

Almost half of the teachers surveyed work more than 50 hours a week. Seventy percent of principals work more than 50 hours a week and one in five work more than 60.

These workloads puts both groups at high risk of experiencing adverse psychological and physical health outcomes.  

This year’s budget was rounded criticised as it featured a ‘significant funding gap’ for education.

In opposition to these arguments, OECD studies show New Zealand spent 6.3% of our GDP on education in 2017, ranking it 2nd within the OECD.

Nearly three-quarters of New Zealand Year 7 to 10 teachers say they would become teachers again (2018), similar to the OECD average of 76%.

New Zealand sits above the OECD average in terms of our rates of early childhood enrolment for children under the age of three (2018), and is above the OECD average for students completing upper secondary school within the expected duration of three years (2018).

These sound like great results, but I ask, are we still asking too much of our teachers? 

Speaking personally to his own thoughts, Cromwell teacher Kieran Philip told The Central App teacher burnout is a problem that many face in the profession.

“There are issues around workload that we deal with which can be a major contributing factor, things such as the changes to NCEA and the rewrite of our senior courses and assessments, the increasing needs of students, including mental health and wellbeing, and a lack of resourcing for services in schools.

“The PPTA Te Wehengarua supports teachers through their campaigns and programmes, such as wellbeing workshops, and The Promise to new Teachers which is a campaign around getting schools to show their commitment to new teachers and give them a position to thrive in the profession, as teacher burnout is a contributing factor to 40% of new teachers leaving in the first four years.”

Kieran says many teachers deal with a wide variety of issues throughout a school day - both behavioural and academic.

“As a teacher the need to deliver a teaching programme to dozens of students with wide ranging abilities, it often requires a large amount of time planning multiple versions of the same lesson.

“If you then consider the wider picture for the student, there are many aspects in their life which may bring complications to the classroom which need to be addressed as well.

“One of the key things that could be done to support teachers is better resourcing of schools. More funding to schools allows for an improved system in place to help ensure student wellbeing and achievement.

“The government has worked alongside the PPTA Te Wehengarua to help support teachers, with teacher only days over the next few years to focus on NCEA changes, Mana Ōrite, and Literacy and Numeracy.

“What I have heard through conversations with teachers from other areas is that we all face similar problems, I think our senior leaders often do as much as they can in terms of support and focus on wellbeing, but they are confined within the resourcing they get from the government.

“Work/life balance can be a tricky problem for teachers as first and foremost we care about our students and it's not something that is easily turned off at 5pm, many teachers spend their non-work time still thinking about work.”

More needs to be done to support teachers in New Zealand. 

Supporting teachers and allowing them to be better able to do their job, in the end, means children will receive a better education. 

At a point, the support for educators ceases to be an “education problem” and becomes a social, cultural, economic and health problem as well. 

Education is the key to society being healthy in all these regards. 

Perhaps, work/life balance, mental health and workplace health is the place we need to be focusing our attention to address the problems highlighted above. 

Then again, work/life balance, mental health and workplace health is probably something to be looked at right across the board.