Third of school principals suffer physical abuse says report

A government report into the teaching profession in Northern Ireland has found that one-in-three principals has suffered physical abuse at the hands of pupils or parents, and a similar number of teachers has suffered from verbal abuse in the workplace.

The shock statistics were contained in the report, 'Teachers’ Health and Well-being Survey Report', compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the Department of Education, which was released today.

Whilst only half of the 23,694 teachers and principals canvassed actually replied, the proportion of those who regularly received verbal or physical abuse in the workplace should give cause for concern.

Principals were more likely to have ever been threatened with either physical violence (37.2%) or experienced verbal abuse (56.3%) compared to any other teacher. It was found that 16.9% of teachers reported that they had been threatened with physical violence and 37.5% had experienced verbal abuse. However, one-in-10 teachers had ever actually been physically assaulted at work and the main perpetrators were pupils and parents.

Around half (49.7%) of teachers indicated that they found their job very or extremely stressful and just over one-in-four found that they were unable to cope with the stress they were under.

The main causes of job-related stress reported were “having too much work to do” and “too much administration/paperwork”. However, 61.5% of respondents also reported that “lack of time to prepare lessons” was a cause of unwanted stress.

Of those who responded, 15.1% of teachers were found to be absent from school in the last year due to job-related stress. On average teachers who were absent due to job-related stress were absent for 14 days in the last year due to stress.

The report also found that 57.7% of teachers were satisfied or very satisfied with their job while 22.2% were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. A lower proportion of teaching principals (55%) were satisfied with their job compared to all other teaching grades. Almost half (48.5%) of teachers considered that their physical environment was good while one third (32.0%) thought that the physical working environment needed to be improved.

NIO Minister Jane Kennedy welcomed the report saying that it was "important in establishing a baseline of where we are now".

The two solutions most favoured by teachers to reduce stress and to promote a healthier work environment were an annual review of overall health and well-being and stress reduction/healthier lifestyle course. In terms of workload and dealing with change, the report recommends increasing the use of ICT and reducing bureaucracy by redeploying administrative tasks away from teachers. There are also recommendations about reviewing the current strategies for improving pupil discipline, improved communications between schools and their education partners, an improved physical working environment, and personal development training.

(GMcG)