TEACHERS spend almost as many hours working outside the classroom as they do inside, according to a survey conducted by members of the Co Limerick branch of the Teachers' Union of Ireland.
The survey of second level teachers found that the average teacher spends some 22 hours per week in classroom teaching and a further 19.25 hours in extra curricular duties.
"We were amazed to find that teachers were doing in excess of 19 extra hours each week" said Mr Liam Lenihan, secretary of the Limerick County branch. "That would bring teachers over the industrial 40 hour week."
Time spent in preparation for class accounted for the most significant portion of extra work for teachers, amounting to almost 133 extra hours annually, or over four hours per week. Time spent correcting students' work accounted for marginally less time outside the classroom, with nearly 121 extra hours annually consumed in the correction of work.
Almost 54 hours per year are spent advising students and a further 59 hours are taken up with the marking of exam papers. Other major sources of extra curricular work were substitution for absent colleagues and studying for new courses, both of which took up 33 hours per year.
The compilers of the survey believe it serves as a riposte to both the controversial Time in School circular issued by the Minister for Education last August, and the productivity requirements contained in the Department of Education's Pay and conditions offer to the unions.
"I think one of the things that upset teachers more than anything else in the rejection of the Department's, offer is that there was no recognition of the extra work teachers do," said Mr Lenihan who is also principal of the Community College in Dromcollogher, Co Limerick.
"I didn't see any recognition in the PCW document that we do any of these things, other than the requirement that we should do more.