Professor John Robertson OBA

The Herald and the Scotsman and Scottish Labour just love the EIS.

I was in education for nearly 4 decades. I never did a proper survey but it seemed like there was a lot of moaning going on. I’ve worked in chemical works, a power station, a psychiatric hospital laundry, sawmills and a parks department. It was often difficult – too cold, too hot, smelly, disgusting, too hard, scary – but in everyone of them, moaning all the time would just get you teased, sometimes cruelly, in often wickedly funny ways.

In education, far too many colleagues, would greet you with a polite hello but if you were stupid enough to ask them how they were, they’d reveal in dramatic tones, extreme workloads, stress, anxiety, feelings of not being valued, and so on. When they got round to asking me, I began saying that I was fine, enjoying the benefits of my former efficiencies. It was not popular.

As often before, the EIS has gone to the Scotsman to tell them how bad the Scottish Government is at running education.

A recent EIS leader and two Labour leaders, Jack McConnell and Richard Leonard were at Stirling University together with me, in the 70s and 80s.

By 1997, most of these ‘Temporary Trots‘ had mutated into career Blairites or had gained jobs in teaching, in the unions and in the media.

The SNP is the only left-of-centre party in Scotland with a realistic chance of creating a better country. They know that but can never forgive their more ethnic Nat foes back then for changing into what they hoped they’d become.

I’ve been on strikes before but they were against a managerialist class in education then staffed by former Trots and applauded by others in the Scottish media. I don’t remember the EIS getting sympathetic media coverage from the Herald or the BBC in the early 80s, when action won the relatively good salaries and conditions teachers still have today.

Why Scottish teachers should remember who they’re friends are?

Professor John Robertson OBA

It’s impossible to escape the conclusion that if teacher workload is the issue in Scottish schools then there is a failure here of management in schools to apply the clearly superior funding made available by the Scottish Government and maintained over decades now.

The facts from Grok AI with sources below are above and:

Sources:

https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-and-training-statistics-for-the-uk/2024

https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-and-training-statistics-for-the-uk/2023

There’s more:

By JB

The headline above is from Teachers Education Supplement magazine 2019 in an article about a teacher from England who came to work in Scotland.

“Teachers have a far better time of it north of the border, says this educator who has experienced school life in both countries” 

He goes on to say that “On balance, I think teaching in the Scottish state- education system is better than in the English one. It seems foolish now that I never considered there would be differences; it’s just that my English-centric view had me assume that the two systems would be identical. Believe me, they are not.”

In England, he states, that, teachers “definitely cannot work in a place of their choosing if they are not required on site.” In other words it is “expressly forbidden” for a teacher in England to take home a pupils work for assessment. 

In Scotland you can and he says that “treating teachers with this more professional and trusting attitude seems the norm here.”

He explains why Scottish teachers are “so engaged” and “so fiercely passionate about contributing their views” at staff meetings.

He says that “teachers have a much stronger voice here” whereas in England they are not asked for their opinions or to put ideas forward.

He ends with “ if you were to ask me where teachers have a better time of it, I’d say Scotland comes out on top.”

‘I’d rather be a teacher in Scotland than England’ | Tes Magazine

From UCL (University College London) 2020

Wellbeing among teachers in England is lower than in Scotland

According to their report they used “data from the Annual Population Survey” where they compared levels of anxiety, unhappiness, low life satisfaction and low levels of self-worth across the four consistent countries of the UK. 

They found that:

“Teachers in England are more anxious and less happy”

The standout finding is that teachers in England are more likely to say that they are unhappy (21% of teachers) than their Welsh (18%), Scottish (17%) and Northern Irish (12%) counterparts.

A similar pattern can be seen for levels of anxiety, with teachers in England more likely to report higher levels of anxiety (21%) than those in Scotland (18%) and Northern Ireland (13%). The figure for Wales is close to the English figure, at 20%.

Teachers in England also had lower levels of life satisfaction than teachers in Scotland.

Unfortunately they then go on to put Scotland down, as is always the way if England doesn’t’ come out top, by the quite frankly cringe worthy  “Maybe the sunny Scottish weather, copious amounts of Iron-Bru and the ready availability of haggis could be factors at play.”

Is wellbeing among teachers in England lower than in the rest of the UK? | UCL IOE Blog

From The Guardian

“Record numbers of teachers in England quitting profession, figures show

Department for Education survey finds that 40,000 – almost 9% of workforce – left state schools in 2021-22 before retirement.”

“The survey found that unfilled teaching vacancies were also at a record high, with more than 2,300 empty posts compared with 530 a decade earlier. A further 3,300 posts were filled by supply teachers, 1,000 more than the year before.”

“Teaching unions blamed poor working conditions and the long-term erosion in pay for the exodus.”

Record numbers of teachers in England quitting profession, figures show | Teacher shortages | The Guardian

So there you have it “why teachers in England seem to be the most miserable.”

And why the SNP Government have made life as a teacher in Scotland an envious vocation!!!