'Work pressure for colleges and universities sky high'
Almost two thirds of higher education staff experience a high or very high workload. This is evident from an analysis commissioned by the association of universities VSNU.
Picture: Type tank
Every three years, the Ministry of the Interior conducts a major survey of the job satisfaction of employees in the public sector. The survey of 2019 was filled in by 40 thousand respondents: 16 thousand of them work in education.
Their answers stood out, and not in a positive sense. With statements such as 'When I get home from work, I am completely exhausted' and 'When I come home, they should leave me alone', the high number of approving responses from education staff stood out.
One in three scientists feels completely exhausted at the end of a working day
At the request of the VSNU, the researchers are still there dived deeper into their dataset. They saw that almost two-thirds of the staff at universities, university medical centers and colleges experience a high or very high workload.
Teachers and scientists are more affected than the support staff, with 72 and 52 percent. One in three scientists feels 'completely exhausted' at the end of a working day. Managers more often experience a high workload than employees without management tasks.
Parent
The researchers saw a clear pattern among the academic staff: the older someone is, the higher the perceived workload. This applies especially to the group of 45 to 55 year olds: about 80 percent of them are having a hard time.
Squares
The concerns about workload in higher education and research are not of today or yesterday. WOinAction, AOb and FNV stepped in earlier this year to the labor inspection. Utrecht students demonstrated last summer by drawing thousands of red squares in solidarity with their overworked teachers.
There is also good news: of the respondents from academic education, 85 percent are satisfied or very satisfied with their job and nearly 80 percent are satisfied with their colleagues. And 65 percent are satisfied with the organization.
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