21,000 teaching days lost to stress in Wales in 2009

NUT Cymru says it is concerned about the number of teachers missing work because of stress

Tens of thousands of teaching days have been lost in Wales through teachers taking time off due to stress, new figures show.

Data supplied by two-thirds of Wales' councils showed 21,000 teaching days were lost for this reason last year.

The figures were released to BBC Wales through a Freedom of Information request.

The Welsh Assembly Government said action had been taken to reduce the amount of stress teachers faced.

More than 144,000 days were lost in total in Wales in the 2009 calendar year because of teachers being off work sick.

However, the number of sick days fell by 11,000 between 2008 and 2009 for the 16 of 22 Welsh counties which responded.

Provisional figures for 2010 also appeared to suggest the downward trend was continuing.

David Evans, Wales Secretary for National Union of Teachers Cymru, said he was pleased the overall figures for days off due to sickness had gone down, but was concerned about the number of days lost due to stress.

He said: "It could be because of pupil behaviour, because of workload, it could be because of things such as pressure for results. There could be bullying and harassment issues or it could be because of inspections.

"Some of the days lost that are not put down to stress may be stress related in some way, but people don't necessarily want to put stress down as a reason.

"In the more enlightened times that we're in now, we would like to think people would specify the true reason they're off but we do find for people who've been off for a long period of time, it might be stress but called something else."

Mr Evans said while nothing could be done about people off sick with flu for example, stress could be tackled.

"We would like the authorities to look at why so many days are being lost through stress and what can be done about it," he said.

He said problems of workload could be eased by changes in the timetable, for example.

The average number of sick days taken by teaching staff varied significantly between local authorities ranging from four days in Powys to 12 days in Merthyr Tydfil.

'Burdens of administration'

Stress was a significant cause of teachers being off sick according to the figures.

More than 600 teachers across 13 councils had at least one day off because of stress last year.

Headteachers were not immune to stress either, with 960 days lost for that reason in 2009.

A Welsh Assembly Government spokesperson said: "Since the School Workload Agreement was signed in 2003 we have taken a number of steps to enable teachers to focus on their core role of leading teaching and learning.

"This has included dedicated time for planning, preparation and assessment, and removal of some of the burdens of administration which were contributing to poor work-life balance and increased stress levels.

"Teachers who are experiencing stress are able to contact Teacher Support Line Cymru for specialist advice and support or to access help provided by their own local authority employee assistants programmes."