SINGAPORE: Teachers in Singapore worked longer hours and were more likely to experience a lot of stress compared to the OECD average, a study found.
The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey, which is done every five years, is the largest international survey of teachers and principals.
In 2024, 55 education systems were surveyed, including 3,500 lower secondary teachers across all 145 public secondary schools and 10 randomly selected private secondary schools in Singapore. Singapore also took part in the 2013 and 2018 editions.
Full-time teachers in Singapore reported that they worked a total of 47.3 hours a week, above the OECD average of 41 hours. This was the same as when the survey was last conducted in 2018, the report showed.
The survey also found that 27 per cent of teachers in Singapore experienced “a lot” of stress in their work, higher than the OECD average of 19 per cent. This figure increased by 4 percentage points from 2018.
Teachers under 30 were more likely to report feeling “a lot” of stress compared to those aged 50 and above, the results showed.
TIME SPENT ON WORK
Of the teachers surveyed, 10 per cent said their job had “a lot” of negative impact on their mental health, which is similar to the overall average.
The survey showed that in Singapore, the top three sources of stress were:
- Having too much administrative work to do
- Having too much marking
- Being held responsible for student achievement
One of the findings was that 53 per cent of teachers said that having too much administrative work was the source of “quite a bit” or “a lot” of stress.
Similar to 2018, the 2024 survey found that full-time teachers spent four hours a week on administrative work, above the OECD average of three hours.
They also spent 6.4 hours a week marking and correcting student work, a decrease of 1.1 hours from 2018. The OECD average is 4.6 hours.
The study also found that teachers spent less time teaching and more time preparing lessons compared to the OECD average.
Teachers in Singapore said they spent 17.7 hours teaching and 8.2 hours preparing lessons each week, compared to the OECD average of 22.7 hours on teaching and 7.4 on preparing lessons.
In Singapore, the time spent preparing lessons went up by 0.9 hours from 2018, while the time spent teaching remained the same, the report said.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) has been examining ways to lighten teachers’ workloads, it said in a separate press release on Tuesday.
It previously said that its efforts to streamline non-teaching duties have reduced teachers’ examination administrative load by 10 per cent.
In September last year, former Education Minister Chan Chun Sing announced a pilot for parents to submit their children’s medical certificates online via Parents Gateway, to use technology to reduce teachers’ workload.
At the time, Mr Chan also set baseline expectations for communication, stressing that teachers should not be expected to respond to work-related messages outside of school hours, except in emergencies.
The ministry has invested in automated marking features and artificial intelligence assessment tools as well, to ease teachers’ marking workload, MOE said in its latest press release.
“MOE will continue to build on existing measures to help our teachers manage their workload and support their well-being.”
