Teachers need a better work-life balance as well as reduced workloads and modern working environments, a study on their mental well-being has revealed.
They also need more autonomy, improved overall respect for the profession, and smaller classes, the qualitative study has shown.
The study, which explored factors that are perceived to affect the psychological well-being of teachers in Maltese State secondary schools was conducted by Audri Mizzi, following the award of an Endeavour Scholarship to partially fund a Master of Science in Psychology.
Most teachers start their holidays this week but a closer look at the experience of teachers in schools paints a picture that might not be as appealing.
Amid claims that teachers have it easy, many vacancies for the job remain unfilled.
Ms Mizzi explained that the recently-conducted study sought to identify factors that serve to enhance or diminish the quality of teachers’ well-being, with the aim of improving teacher retention, recruitment, as well as the quality of teaching and learning in Malta.
While the rate of teacher shortage differs across different countries, the overall rate of resignations among qualified teachers in European countries is considered to be relatively high. Moreover, the unattractiveness of the profession as a result of increased work demands and low professional esteem has steered graduate teachers away from the profession altogether, she said.
Efforts to dignify the teaching profession severely lacking
Ms Mizzi said that research on the organisational factors affecting teachers in Maltese schools has remained limited to quantitatively assessing causes of stress, burnout, and job dissatisfaction.
Findings showed that teachers’ understanding of their own well-being centred on feelings of overall contentment, good mental health, and job satisfaction.
In Maltese public secondary schools, a state of well-being was perceived to be conditioned by students’ diversity and behaviour, school population, workload, collegiality, physical school environment, leadership practices, and organisational support.
While personal resilience was useful for teachers to develop coping strategies to deal with instances of negative well-being in the workplace, participants advocated the need for more emotional awareness during teacher training.
She said many of the people interviewed for this study argued that university courses did not adequately prepare them for the exigencies of the job, resulting in a poor life-work balance, strained relationships, and excessive stress, specifically in the first years of teaching.
Fundamentally, participants felt that efforts to dignify the teaching profession in Malta were severely lacking, which was reflected in the lack of professional consultation, lower rates of student intakes for the job, and higher rates of teacher attrition in Malta, she said.
Teachers also claimed that public perceptions of the profession, as well as incessant curricular changes and expectations also had a negative effect on their well-being.
Ms Mizzi said that to her surprise, only a third of the participants were aware of the employee support programme offering free counselling services to all public employees in Malta.
Smaller classes, reduced workloads, modernised working environments, more autonomy and overall respect for the profession were among the suggested remedial action.
Findings extracted from participants’ experiences suggest that while positive and negative workplace practices can influence teacher well-being, Malta still has a long way to go to effectively improve the well-being of teachers.
Ms Mizzi said that a student-centred approach in education should never underestimate the importance of educators.