The teaching profession in Scotland is facing its biggest crisis level. Educator stress is at an all-time high leading to greater prevalence of mental health related lost work days. Stress has a big impact on teachers, explains Alison Payne, research director at think tank Reform Scotland. Her findings follow years of anecdotal complaints, which led to our in-depth report. In recent years, the Scottish government has invested more than £2 million to promote and improve the wellbeing of the education workforce. Yet stress-related absences have meanwhile soared from 30,380 in 2017/18 to 41,629 in the last academic year.
The information, gathered through freedom of information requests from 34 different councils, shows a shocking new reality. Angus Council announced a record increase in stress-related sick leave. The number of cases in nearby Edinburgh City Council more than doubled over that same time period. The average number of days teachers miss due to stress across the 14 councils, we do not know. We don’t have good hard data on this problem.
To that end, the Scottish government is doing something to address this blight. This year, in conjunction with an agreement to collaborate with Cosla on maintaining teacher numbers at 2023 levels, they are giving local authorities £186.5 million over 2023. At the same time, there are initiatives to freeze learning hours and minimize class contact time. Even with these safeguards, teachers are still going the extra mile. In reality, they regularly go well beyond the contract and clock an extra 11 hours a week.
Reform Scotland’s report corroborates earlier independent research commissioned by the EIS teachers’ union, which looked at the impact of workload and stress on teachers. The resulting effects reveal that the majority of educators are opting out of the profession for these reasons.
"The Scottish government and local authorities, as the employers of teachers, must act in line with their duty of care to ensure that the current crippling workload burden on teachers is lightened," stated the EIS.
The Scottish government maintains that Scotland has the best-paid teachers and the lowest pupil-teacher ratio in the UK. This point was reiterated by a government spokesperson.
"Scotland continues to have the best-paid teachers and the lowest pupil-teacher ratio in the UK," said a Scottish government spokesperson.
Alison Payne of Teach Plus highlights the need for financial support to help teachers. By itself, it can’t fix the root causes of their stress.
"While the growing number of teachers badly affected by stress is obviously deeply worrying on a personal level, the increasing number of days lost also represents more disruption to learning for pupils," Payne commented.
This challenge is exacerbated by inconsistent recording practices all across councils preventing even a complete picture of Scotland being possible. The local council responses have been nothing short of terrifying.
"While the different recording methods used by the different councils made it difficult to get a Scotland-wide picture, individual council responses were alarming," added Payne.
There is uncertainty about whether stress-related absences are due to a few teachers taking extended leaves or many teachers taking frequent short breaks, complicating staffing and cover arrangements.
"The figures don't give an indication of whether a small number of teachers have been off for long periods, which may be easier to manage in terms of securing cover, or if an increasing number of teachers are off for small amounts of time, which can be more difficult to plan around," Payne noted.
They’re offering vital care and education, and they’re making sure that school staff are able to go to their mental health resources. It’s clear that local authorities need to play a responsible role in preventing these stressors from invading their schools. As a result, they are charged with recruiting and deploying teachers and headteachers.
"Local authorities are responsible for the recruitment and deployment of teachers and headteachers," a Scottish government spokesperson emphasized.
