In this moment of a new standard in education, teachers’ general position revealed that they are concerned and overburdened with duties and responsibilities. They are saddled with an enormous quantity of tasks in the midst of the pandemic. They have additional obligations in addition to their teaching duties. Various school tasks are difficult, and puzzling labor at home and other important social duties are also expected. This marked the beginning of a new era for many teachers, in which they would have to devote more time to dealing with social issues, managing workload attitudes, learning new skills, and learning how to handle them in the classroom – even if it meant jeopardizing other students’ academic progress and lowering the quality of their work. Workload strain studies have tended to concentrate on factors that are causally linked to stress in employees’ work environments. As a consequence of these investigations, a workload research field has emerged. Occupational stress related to workload among teachers has become a growing source of concern, according to Beehr (2020), as evidenced not only by a large body of research on the subject but also by the numerous programs and workshops developed to help teachers cope with the problem and reduce occupational stress. According to a government working group assessment on education in Scotland in 2018, one of the difficulties that teachers face nowadays is workload. Teachers must deal with a plethora of paperwork that has nothing to do with teaching in the classroom; constant curriculum reorganization based on bureaucratic guidelines from local authorities or the Scottish Executives; reporting, record keeping, material development, and form filling; and the government’s adamant opposition to making any meaningful changes to class sizes, pupil indiscipline, and the increasingly popular extra-curricular activities.
The word workload has been used in research to describe a situation in which an employee’s poor health and wellbeing is assumed to be caused by job-related concerns (Zindi, 2017). The difficulties of a high workload are thought to be caused by a mismatch between an individual’s talents, objectives, goals, and behavior patterns and the demands and resources, opportunities, and incentives associated with a specific job. Similarly, a person’s degree of fit with their work environment is generally a better predictor of stress than an individual or situational characteristic. Three important themes of Canadian teachers’ teaching workloads have been found by researchers: (a) their workloads are growing, (b) their nonteaching tasks are rapidly expanding, and (c) teachers are being pushed to take on responsibilities for which they are not well prepared (Canadian Teachers Federation, 2017). Over the last decade, increased levels of accountability, the integration of new technology, a 100% retention rate, inclusive education, a growing lack of teacher support from stakeholders in education, particularly the provincial government, and outcomes-based curriculum have all contributed to this phenomenon (Kamanzi, et al., 2017).
The influence of workload stress on human and organizational performance has garnered more attention as a result of developments in automation, worldwide integration of work, demographic changes, continually unclear job assignments, and higher job requirements (Terason, 2018). Workplace stress is a state of bad sentiments or a result of poor working conditions that serves as a warning to an employee (Jamal, 2017). Teachers, according to research from throughout the world, take longer to complete their tasks. In response to the Workload Challenge, for example, the Department of Education has regularly said that it would do extensive research on teacher assignments in English schools. In 2018, participants reported having an excessive amount of work that they feel can only be managed by working long hours. Various things contribute to the load, including lesson planning, grading, recordkeeping, reporting, and meetings (Cooper Gibson Research for DfE, 2018). In addition, according to TUC figures, 61.4 percent of primary school teachers worked more than their statutory hours in 2014, equal to 12.9 more hours each week (Wiggins, 2015). The world needs more educators to collaborate and work as one leading to providing high quality education for all.
By: Mrs. Francia T. Labandelo|Principal I| Ilwas High School Subic, Zambales
