Universities and schools must take action to reduce the crippling workload that teachers and academics are facing. This issue has once again been highlighted this week by the BBC, regrettably with a story about a widow who blames her husband’s HE marking workload for his tragic suicide. Follow this link to read more:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-47296631
Some universities are already trying to make AI algorithms to ease the load. One teething problem is that machine learning can find it tricky to work out which students have included lots of “buzz words”, but whose assignment misses the mark overall. This article illustrates the point in a HE setting:
School are facing the same overwhelming problems and one solution being test is “No more marking”, which is based on “Comparative Judgement”. Follow this link to find out more:
https://www.nomoremarking.com/
Teachers should be able to complete their planning and marking withing the usual working hours. If they have to spend every evening and weekend marking etc then that will have catastrophic impact on their physical and mental well-being and will affect family life. Who wants to be taught by a teacher who is completely “frazzled”?
We hope that solutions are tested and rolled out as soon as possible to lesson workloads for teachers/academics and lesson the impact on their lives and their loved ones.
If you are a member of BU staff in need of support for Well-being please follow this link:
