Recording the workload of teachers

In Saxony, the working hours of teachers will be closely examined over the entire next school year. Such a "fundamental" representative analysis is unique in Germany, said Minister of Culture Christian Piwarz (CDU) in Dresden on Wednesday. The commissioned economic research company Prognos AG selected a total of 4,100 civil servant and salaried teachers with various working time models in a nationwide random sample across all types of public schools. This corresponds to around 15 percent of the teaching staff, as project manager Kristina Stegner said. 410 head teachers also took part.

Teaching only reflects the visible part of teachers' working hours, said Piwarz. The rest, such as time for preparation and follow-up work or other things, is in a "black box" into which light is now to be shed. "We don't know exactly how it is, we only have assumptions and suppositions from discussions with teachers." The aim is to identify resources and improve work processes. The question is, for example, whether everything the teachers do has to be done by a teacher or whether someone else could do it.

From the last week of the summer vacations until the end of the school year, the selected teachers will enter their working hours and what they are used for on a daily basis in an online form - according to a scientifically compiled catalog, as Stegner explained. Interviews will also be used to determine the subjective workload, especially at special times such as exam and revision periods.

The ministry estimated the costs for the study at around 54,000 euros. Piwarz is hoping for initial results from the study in 2025, from which recommendations for action will also be derived. Previous studies of this kind were based on voluntary work, he said. "We want broad and valid data on the workload of professional teachers."

In autumn 2023, the German Education and Science Union (GEW) pushed for the working hours of teachers to be recorded. It referred to a study it had commissioned which, in its opinion, scientifically proves that teachers are overworked.