Stressed teachers take 240,000 days off work over three years Labour say rising stress absence down to increased workload and falling staff numbers

Teachers have taken almost 240,000 days off due to stress in the past three years, new figures show.

Labour said the rising number of such absences was due to increased workload and reduced staffing. Unions claimed one school was considering going down to a four-day week because of staff shortages. But the Scottish Government insisted it had acted to reduce “unnecessary bureaucracy”.

Lost days

A total of 237,294 work days were lost between 2015/16 and 2017/18. There was also a 3.5 per cent rise in the annual number of absences over this period. The number grew from 77,779 days in 2015/16 to 80,514 in 2017/18.

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Scottish Labour education spokesman Iain Gray said: “Scotland’s teachers are under increased stress as the staffing crisis in our schools takes its toll.

“Since 2007 the number of teachers has fallen by more than 3,500 under the SNP whilst school budgets have been slashed by £400 million, heaping pressure on the teaching profession.”

Recruitment and retention

Education unions have stressed rising workload as a key issue in recruiting and retaining teachers.

They are already in a bitter dispute with councils and the Scottish Government over pay. Ministers rejected a claim for a 10 per cent rise. Unions say this needed to make up for a decade of wage stagnation and rising living costs. Labour’s Mr Gray added: “Teachers are justified in feeling undervalued by this government. It is time the SNP put their money where their mouth is and gave teachers the pay rise they deserve.” ‘Killer workload’ Seamus Searson, general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association, said the decline in teacher numbers and workload was compounding the pay issue. “Our members are saying to us the workload is killing them,” he told i. “Teachers are already working up to the maximum [working] week, covering the gaps that are left there.”

Four-day week