Secondary school teachers are mostly stressed out by low salaries compared to their workload followed by poorly motivated and badly behaved students, according to a study presented at a union conference.
Teachers in independent schools report the highest stress, followed by state and Church schools, according to the overall results of the Bachelor’s in Education dissertation of Stephanie Cassar and Ann Marie Formosa.
The two final-year students presented the results of a study they carried out for their thesis, entitled The New Academic Disease, during the Malta Union of Teachers’ general conference yesterday.
A questionnaire was filled by 376 secondary school teachers, most of who were women.
About 37 per cent of teachers find teaching very or extremely stressful and 82 per cent feel their salary should improve, creating high stress levels for them.
Having said that, however, 65 per cent of teachers recommend the career to University students.
Results showed that Church school teachers are those that experience the most stress in relation to coping with syllabus requirements. Independent schools have the largest number of teachers who are stressed out due to long hours.
Pupils who do not respect teachers’ authority are found predominantly in state schools, whose female teachers generally find it more difficult to impose their authority in class, according to the study.
When it comes to state and Church schools, male students are the hardest to control while independent schools struggle mainly to contain mixed-gender classes. MUT outgoing president John Bencini said he was not surprised at the results and pointed out that teachers faced a big problem of misbehaviour. “One has to question whether the University is preparing teachers to face this in class,” he said.
He was disappointed to see that no one from the education authorities had turned up for the conference despite being invited. He pointed out that over the years the MUT had worked hard to safeguard teachers’ rights and figures showed that teachers were aware of this. MUT membership had increased to 8,060 members this year from 5,770 in 2001.