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LSE study of the Green Paper pay system for teachers and its effects
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Type of out of hours activity | % of 'non- directed' hours devoted to each activity | First reason | Second reason |
Lesson preparation and marking | 54 | Quality of education | To get the work done |
Seeing parents and pupils outside class time | 10 | Quality of education | Activities occur after hours & don't let down pupils & colleagues |
Involvement in school clubs, sports, orchestras, etc. | 5 | Activities after hours | Enjoy the work |
School/staff management: meetings | 11 | Management pressure | To benefit school |
General administrative tasks | 14 | To get the work done | Quality of education |
Individual & professional development activities | 5 | Quality of education | Activities occur after hours |
Total | 100 |
These reasons mirror those given for remaining in teaching, which stress the intrinsic interest of their work over the financial and status rewards of their jobs. They also reflect the very high levels of commitment our survey found both to their schools and the teaching profession. These appear far above those of many other groups of workers in the economy.
In other words, teachers do not see themselves as cynically taking advantage of their relative job and pay security to enjoy 'on-the-job leisure'. If anything, they feel trapped into going the extra mile, or two, in order to give their pupils the quality of education they believe they deserve.
8. This compares with an average (mean) of 12.1 hours in primary, and 13.3 hours in secondary schools found by the STRB survey 1996, against a background of average weekly hours of 50.8 hours in primary and 50.3 hours in secondary schools.
Copyright © London School of Economics and Political Science 2000