Australian teachers have unsustainable workloads, and government responses have done little to ease their burden.

New figures from the OECD show that Australian teachers have one of the heaviest workloads of in the OECD. Overall working hours of Australian teachers, especially non-teaching hours, are significantly above the OECD average and contribute directly to teacher stress, burnout, and growing attrition from the profession. Despite multiple policy announcements, governments have made little meaningful progress in reducing these workloads, and this failure is contributing to national teacher shortages.

The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2024 shows that Australian lower secondary teachers work an average of 46.4 hours per week, the third-longest working week in the OECD behind Japan (55 hours) and New Zealand (47.5). This is far higher than the OECD average of 41 hours per week. By comparison, teachers in Finland average 36 hours, while Türkiye has the shortest working week at 31 hours.

The core issue is not excessive teaching time, but an excessive non-teaching workload.

Australian teachers actually teach fewer hours than the OECD average: 20 hours per week compared with the OECD average of 22.7 hours. However, they spend 26.4 hours per week on non-teaching duties, the second highest in the OECD. Teachers in Türkiye spend only nine hours per week on such tasks. The key contributors to this non-teaching load are lesson planning, marking, collaboration with colleagues, and administrative and compliance tasks.

A major component is planning, marking, and collaborative tasks. Australian teachers spend 18.1 hours per week on these activities — the fourth highest in the OECD. Half of all Australian teachers report that excessive marking is a significant source of stress, among the highest proportions internationally.

One likely factor is the time spent preparing students for NAPLAN tests. TALIS asks teachers about work done during the most recent full week of teaching, and because Phase 1 of TALIS 2024 data collection occurred during Term 1 — the intense lead-up to NAPLAN — the survey likely captures inflated marking and preparation workloads. NAPLAN applies to Years 7 and 9, directly affecting lower secondary teachers.

Research shows Australian schools often devote weeks of class time to NAPLAN preparation, and teacher union surveys confirm that most teachers believe NAPLAN substantially increases their workload. While other OECD nations also use standardised tests, it is unclear whether they require similar volumes of classroom practice.

Administrative burden is another defining feature of Australian teachers’ workload. TALIS 2024 shows that Australian lower secondary teachers spend 4.7 hours per week on administrative tasks, the fourth highest in the OECD. The OECD average is three hours; teachers in Finland and France spend only 1.5 hours. Administrative work is a major source of stress for 69 per cent of Australian teachers — the third-highest rate internationally.

A number of government initiatives are intended to reduce teacher workload including the National Teacher Workforce Action Plan (NTWAP) and several state programs. However, these initiatives have been criticised as piecemeal, insufficient, or symbolic.

The Productivity Commission, for example, found that teacher workload is the primary factor behind teachers’ intention to leave the profession, yet it criticised the NTWAP for lacking mechanisms to systematically reduce workload across sectors and jurisdictions. Other expert reports, including the Expert Panel on a Better and Fairer Education System, have also called for workload reduction as a priority.

Recent audits reinforce these concerns. A 2024 NSW Department of Education audit revealed a vast and complex array of operational tasks driven by policy, including 201 separate policies and 105 tasks identified as “frustrating, painful, or overly complex.” Many tasks involve high workloads and manual paperwork, increasing differentiation demands, wellbeing-related administration, and compliance reporting.

In Victoria, a 2024 review found teachers spend eight hours per week on administrative and compliance activities, with 77 per cent reporting that this workload has been worsening. Many new departmental programs and policies add more compliance requirements without removing older ones, creating cumulative administrative load.

Multiple academic studies further confirm that excessive workload — particularly administrative duties, compliance, meetings, and data collection — undermines lesson preparation and student engagement, accelerates burnout, and damages teacher wellbeing. These studies point to a growing mismatch between teachers’ core professional work and the expanding bureaucratic demands placed on them.

Although governments have launched workload-reduction programs — including NSW’s School Admin Reduction Program, Victoria’s reduced face-to-face teaching time and Operational Teaching Assistant trial, and Queensland’s red-tape reform initiative — they  fall short because they avoid addressing the biggest issue: the volume of reporting, accountability, and compliance imposed by central and regional offices.

Four central problems are neglected by governments:

• workload is not just about time but also about the intensity and cognitive/emotional complexity of work;
• reducing workload requires funding — especially to hire additional qualified staff;
• central office demands on teachers must be reduced rather than simply hiring more admin staff to manage them; and
• pilot projects often delay meaningful action and do not address systemic drivers of workload.

The complexity and intensity of teachers’ work is increasing. Simplistic measures — such as shaving one or two hours off weekly duties — fail to address the deeper demands of teaching, which involve complex relational, emotional, and cognitive labour. Teacher ’time poverty’ is driven by both the volume and the intensity of work.

To fundamentally reduce workload, some researchers advocate reorganising schools as “multi-opportunity communities” or community hubs that support both academic learning and student wellbeing. Employing more allied professionals (e.g., wellbeing staff, psychologists, social workers) is supported by other research. It would alleviate the burden on teachers while addressing increasing student needs.

However, the long-term underfunding of public schools prevents this approach from being implemented. Full funding is needed to enable additional staffing and reduce reliance on teacher labour for wellbeing and administrative services.

Current workload-reduction programs tend to focus on increasing school-level administrative staffing rather than reducing the quantity of demands from central offices. Employing more administration staff to handle compliance may divert funds from student support roles and does not reduce the source of the problem.

Meaningful change requires cutting back bureaucracy and simplifying policies, procedures, reporting lines, and program requirements.

TALIS 2024 adds authoritative evidence to the already substantial body of research documenting unsustainable teacher workloads in Australia. Government responses have not significantly reduced these burdens: working hours and non-teaching hours have changed little since TALIS 2018.

Without substantial action — including fully funding public schools, restructuring school organisation, reducing central office demands, and employing more teachers and allied professionals — Australia risks continued teacher shortages and compromised student learning and wellbeing.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.