WORKLOAD is the biggest barrier to young teachers making the profession their career, a conference has heard.
Young staff aged 30 and under gathered in Birmingham for the NASUWT’s Young Teachers’ Consultation Conference to take part in professional development workshops and receive advice.
Its members in Northern Ireland are engaged in industrial action over pay and workload. The union said 87 per cent of teachers and school leaders cited workload as their number one concern about their job, including attendance at meetings.
A real-time electronic poll of members at the conference found that more than four in 10 (43 per cent) said workload got in the way of teaching being considered a career for life.
One in 10 (12 per cent) said they would be leaving teaching within one year while 21 per cent said they would recommend teaching as a career to family or friends.
NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates said it was deeply worrying that many did not feel confident of being able to remain in teaching in the longer term and would not recommend a career to others.
"Spiralling workloads, unsustainable working hours and worsening pay and conditions of service are the main factors impacting on young teachers' morale and job satisfaction," she said.
