Sixty-nine percent of teachers feel parents could do more to support their child’s remote learning, a survey by Teaching Abroad Direct has revealed.
With many countries around the globe remaining in lockdown due to the coronavirus, students, teachers and parents have been forced to implement digital tools and solutions to minimise the disruption to education.
Analysing responses from 1,144 teachers, the survey sought to unravel how the lockdown has affected teachers at every education level, as well as measure how their habits have changed and gauge their thoughts on the next steps for the sector.
Of the teachers surveyed, 81% said they are now teaching remotely, with nursery (87%) and secondary (87%) school teachers being the most likely to be working with their students from home, with video calls and interactive workbooks and sheets standing as the most commonly used tools.
With one in four (23%) college-level tutors claiming they aren’t teaching their students remotely, college students are the least likely to be receiving digitally-delivered lessons during the lockdown.
When the survey asked teachers, ‘What’s your opinion of remotely teaching students once lockdowns have been removed?’, 48% said that while remote teaching needs improvement, it could definitely work as a longer-term measure, with a further 15% saying they’d be happy to continue working remotely post-pandemic.
Overall, almost 37% of teachers believed e-learning is not a suitable long-term solution, with female teachers (38%) being the most likely to oppose the digital learning model.
Primary school teachers are the least likely to say they’d like remote learning to continue after the lockdown, with almost 41% claiming it wouldn’t work.
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The survey revealed that the older the students, the more likely that their teacher would be content with continuing to work remotely, with almost 75% saying they would have no problem maintaining the current setup or with some adjustments in the future.
Interestingly, the survey responses varied according to age, with teachers aged 18-24 (73%) being more receptive to greater levels of remote working than their peers aged 25-34 (62%), showing that those who are less experienced in the profession are less constrained by traditional classroom methods and open to flexible working structures in the future.
But teachers are also battling additional financial pressures spurring from COVID-19, with almost a quarter (24%) of teachers claiming they have either been furloughed or had their contracts cancelled as a direct result of the pandemic.
Supply teachers are the hardest hit, with almost 83% either on furlough or having their contracts terminated; compared to almost 30% of part-time and almost 18% of full-time teachers.
Consequently, two in every five teachers are likely to be worse off after the crisis, with 30% expecting a financial deficit of anywhere up to £5,000. With starting salaries in the profession estimated at around £24,500, the pandemic could potentially see some teachers lose up to a fifth of their annual salary.
“Clearly teachers have worked tirelessly during the coronavirus pandemic, adjusting how they work during the introduction of social distancing and the recent lockdowns, with many making their classes available remotely; ensuring students are able to continue their education,” said Andrew Lynch, director of Teaching Abroad Direct.
“As governments look to re-open their economies and, in turn, their schools, we hope that teachers are listened to both in how to implement social distancing in schools and how to improve the remote learning experience for both teachers and their students.”