European Trade Union Committee for Education

According to the TALLIS results conducted by the OECD in 2013, Russian teachers are the most burdened with administrative work in comparison to colleagues in the 36 countries that participated in the survey: out of 46 working hours per week, they spend more than 4 hours on preparing lesson plans and reports, while the average time for such activity in the surveyed countries is 3 hours.

Russian local trade unions have repeatedly complained about the growth of teachers’ reporting duties, not related to their professional responsibilities and not paid for separately. The issue of reducing the excessive reporting by teachers was discussed at a meeting of the Russian State Council on 23 December 2015 and the Government of the Russian Federation has been instructed to take measures for reducing teachers’ workload as regards the documentation of education institutions.

Experts of the Education and Science Employees’ Union of Russia (ESEUR) actively participated in the thorough analysis of the administrative documents circulation of education institutions and issued a joint letter (together with the Ministry of Education and Science) “Recommendations on reducing excessive administrative reporting by teachers.” On 16 May 2016, the letter was sent to the heads of regional education authorities, education organisation, and regional branches of ESEUR.

To avoid excessive reporting and eliminate teachers’ workload not required by their contracts, the Letter recommends that "reporting by the teacher outside of his/her teaching obligations (such as teaching plans or students’ records)” can be demanded by school administration only after obtaining the teacher’s written consent and should be paid for separately. Other significant recommendations include avoiding the duplication of documents in print and electronic forms; eliminating requests for information and documents from the teacher in the course of his/her certification that are not covered by the order of certification; collecting required information from schools’ websites and information systems with a "personalised office" by regional administration.

Even though, the Letter has no regulatory power and is only a recommendation, the President of ESEUR G.I. Merkulova, believes that it is a big step towards reducing the bureaucracy of the Russian education system and decreasing the unhealthy level of workload of Russian teachers.