NT teachers stressed and ‘overworked’

JASON WALLS

jason.walls@news.com.au MORE than half the Territory’s teachers are working in excess of 50 hours a week, including regular unpaid overtime, an education union survey has revealed.

Australian Education Union NT president Jarvis Ryan said 56 per cent of surveyed school teachers reported working 12 hours of unpaid overtime each week during school terms.

Education Department staff lodged 12 stress claims with the NT Work Health Authority in 2016-17 and Mr Ryan said the high workload was a likely contributor.

“It’s not unusual for our members to be putting in 10 or 12 hour days routinely and this is unpaid overtime and it does take a toll on teachers’ physical and mental health,” he said.

Mr Ryan said teacher stress was “a real and growing phenomenon” in the Northern Territory and throughout the rest of the nation.

“It’s a problem both here in the Territory but also more widely and it’s predominantly to do with being asked to do too much with too little and that could be too little time or too little in the way of resources,” he said.

“It’s a chronic issue and it just seems that we’re asking teachers to do more and more and the result is that people are put under more stress.”

A University of South Australia and University of Canberra study last year found many teachers throughout the nation spent more than two hours each day doing work outside school hours.

The study also found those teachers were more prone to stress and fatigue.

Co-author Peter Winwood said the research highlighted the high levels of stress among school teachers.

“The stress levels tend to be universally high (and) tend to be higher among younger teachers with less experience (and) it can have very significant potential to cause both physical and emotional health (problems),” he said.

“This can include a group of teachers who are within the range of giving up teaching because of stress.”

An NT Education Department spokeswoman refused to comment on the grounds the department did not have a copy of the union’s survey.

“Unfortunately as we have not been provided with a copy of the survey, we are not in a position to comment,” she said.