Teachers Became Teachers to Teach,Not to Fill in Forms

More than half of a teacher’s week goes to work outside the classroom. Here’s how schools can take the paperwork off their plate.

Ms. Priya loves her Grade 6 class. What she doesn’t love is everything after the bell: attendance registers, mark entry, lesson plan formats, circulars to copy into diaries, and a data request from the office that needs to be in by tomorrow

By the time she gets to planning tomorrow’s lesson, it’s 10 pm.

Where the week really goes

International data from the OECD shows the average lower-secondary teacher spends around 21 hours a week actually teaching, and around 26 hours on everything else: planning, marking, meetings and admin. The teaching is the part they trained for. The rest is where the time drains away

A teacher’s working week: teaching vs. everything else

Not all of it can go, but a lot can

Planning and marking will always be part of the job. But typing the same attendance into two systems, rebuilding report formats every term and chasing forms by hand are problems a school can actually fix.

What schools can take off the list

Attendance taken once on a phone or tablet, flowing straight into reports. Marks entered once and reused everywhere they’re needed. Lesson plans and resources shared across a department instead of rebuilt by each teacher. Circulars and reminders sent to parents directly, not copied into diaries. Every hour saved is an hour that can go back to students

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