TEACHERS are to campaign for a cut to the amount of time they spend in the classroom.
Members of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) teaching union want a reduction from the current weekly maximum of 22.5 hours class contact time to just 20 hours.
Teachers at the EIS annual general meeting in Perth overwhelmingly backed a motion on the issue, arguing the time would be better spent on marking and preparing lessons.
READ MORE: Teachers 'working eight hours a week extra'
The motion also endorsed a campaign to reduce class sizes in all mainstream schools to just 20. The current maximum is 33 although nubers are capped at 25 in P1.
It comes after teachers won a 13 per cent pay increase, staggered over three years, following a lengthy campaign and threats of strike action.
The next phase of their campaign is to highlight what they see as an excessive workload burden.
Andrew Fullwood, a teacher from Glasgow, said: "Workload is a major issue for us and we need to acknowledge that.
"We need to recognise that for years we have been saying workload is an issue. We really need to do something that reduces workload in a concrete fashion."
Mr Fullwood said the EIS should build support for a campaign to reduce class contact time, but also stressed industrial action was one way of achieving the aim in future.
READ MORE: Teachers want to cut classroom time to 17.5 hours a week
Backing the motion, Jennifer Gaffney, a teacher from South Lanarkshire, said teachers made more decisions in one day than brain surgeons.
Nicola Fisher, a teacher from Glasgow, said "warm words" from the Scottish Government on workload was not enough and it was time for legislation to reduce class contact time.
The motion calling for change from EIS local associations in Glasgow and South Lanarkshire was passed overwhelmingly.
It means the EIS will begin a campaign to secure a negotiated reduction of maximum class contact time for teachers to 20 hours per week and to increase preparation and correction time to 10 hours per week.
Last year, a major report on education systems around the world found Scotland’s teachers spent a higher percentage of time in the classroom than most other countries.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said Scottish teachers spent 860 hours a year teaching in secondary schools compared to an average of 700 hours.
An EIS survey published earlier this week found a majority of teachers are also working at least an extra eight hours a week over the 35 hours maximum.
A commitment to reduce workload has been written into a recent agreement with the Scottish Government and council umbrella body Cosla on teachers’ pay.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel