Teacher workload in Scotland: challenges to sustainability

This blog post examines influences on teacher wellbeing and professional sustainability in Scotland’s education system.1 The Teacher Workload Research Project (Hulme et al., 2024), funded by Scotland’s largest teaching union, the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), explored workload challenges currently faced by teachers in Scotland. The research was the result of a resolution from the 2022 EIS Annual General Meeting to contract ‘independent research that considers the workload of teachers, the extra hours they work beyond their contractual hours as a consequence of their workload and the main reasons for the failure to achieve a 35-hour working week for teachers.’ Thematic analysis of time-use diaries from 1,834 teachers and 40 in-depth interview transcripts identified adverse effects of workload intensification on wellbeing, job satisfaction and career sustainability.