Teachers must push back against a culture that “coerces” them into doing extra work beyond their contracted hours, the president of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) will say today.
Too often, teachers feel “coerced” into taking on duties beyond their skill set and teaching responsibilities because they do not want to let down pupils, Stuart Hunter will say at the SSTA annual congress in Glasgow today.
He will urge teachers to say “no” to what he describes as “moral blackmail”, part of a “toxic culture that has created excess workload that damages our health”.
Mr Hunter fears that while the burden on teachers has grown ever bigger in a time of severe budget cuts, this issue has not featured prominently in the plethora of recent reviews of Scottish education.
He points to cuts to social work and educational psychology, as well as a “severe lack of mental health support for students”, that have had knock-on effects for schools.
“So, who must fill the void?” he will ask. “Teachers.”
‘Controlling and coercive behaviour’
He will criticise “controlling and coercive behaviour” that is a “direct result” of budget cuts.
“Teachers are expected to fill the void, even though they are not trained to provide these services in addition to our teaching duties,” he will say.
“It becomes an expectation because teachers ‘will go the extra mile’ for their students. It will look good on the CV if you are looking for a permanent contract. We have normalised the exceptional.”
Mr Hunter will add: “We have been conditioned over the years by moral blackmail to take on more and more work.
“We have been very subtly controlled and coerced into believing that we are letting our students down if we do not take on the additional work for which we are not trained.”
Uniting behind the ‘magic word’ of ‘no’
He believes the best way to “begin the process of ending controlling and coercive behaviour is to first acknowledge that it is happening”, adding: “The next step is to unite and with one voice clearly state that magic word: ‘no’.”
Earlier this week, the SSTA expressed concern over a report commissioned by the Scottish government, which advised that the 2026 target to reduce teachers’ weekly class-contact time by 90 minutes should be delayed to 2028.
The reduced contact-time policy is seen by teaching unions as a critical factor in attempts to reduce workload.
A Scottish government spokesperson said that it “recognises and appreciates the hard work of our teachers, which is why we have invested to ensure they are the best paid in the UK”, adding that “Scotland has the lowest pupil-teacher ratio of any UK nation and we are offering local authorities £145.5 million in this year’s budget for protecting teacher numbers”.
Yesterday, new first minister John Swinney sidestepped successive attempts in the Scottish Parliament to establish whether he will stick to the commitment to increase teacher numbers by 3,500 in the course of the 2021-26 parliamentary term.
The spokesperson also said: “The Scottish government is working with the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers on progressing the commitment to reducing class-contact time and ministers are determined that planning for this is based on robust evidence.
“It is vital that school staff are able to access any wellbeing support they might need. Since October 2020, we have allocated over £2 million to specifically support the wellbeing of the education workforce.”
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