Nature of workload rather than quantity a crucial factor in teachers leaving

Workload is the biggest reason for teachers leaving the profession, new research by UCL Institute of Education (IOE) shows.

The study of around 1,200 current and former teachers discovered that despite claiming to be aware of the challenges of workload before entering teaching, workload was the most frequently cited reason for having left, or for leaving in the future.

The results found that the reality of teaching was worse than expected for many, and the nature (rather than the quantity) of the workload, particularly accountability, was a crucial factor.

The survey also explored the reasons why people became teachers and found that teachers entered the profession because they wanted to work with young people and ‘make a difference’. However, once they started in teaching, the work-life balance and accountability culture dulled their enthusiasm.

The majority of those who entered the profession viewed teaching as a long-term career, with only 7% seeing teaching as a route to another career. However, this does not reflect the numbers leaving the profession.

“This amplifies the problem of teacher attrition, as those who want to be teachers are committed to the profession and yet, somehow, that commitment is eroded in a very short space of time,” authors Dr Jane Perryman and Graham Calvert note.

“Underlying this loss of commitment seems to be a contradiction between expectation and reality, the practices of being a teacher impeding the ability to be a teacher. Many of our sample thought they could cope with the workload, but lack of support and the target accountability culture seemed to be worse than they had thought and led to many leaving, and further numbers considering it.
“This raises the questions: what can be done to arrest this trend? The general response from government is that teaching will be improved by reducing workload removing unnecessary tasks and increasing pay. This may help, and our study does continue the discourse that workload is key. However, it also indicates that part of the problem lies within the culture of teaching, the constant scrutiny, the need to perform and hyper-critical management. Reducing workload will not address these cultural issues.”