Estonian teacher's diary reveals 44-hour work week
An Estonian teacher, Heleriin Paeoja, tracked her own working hours for one September week and found she worked over 44 hours, far beyond her officially mandated 31.5-hour load. The account comes as Estonia's Education Ministry plans a €70,000 study into teachers' actual workload.
Estonia's Ministry of Education is commissioning a study, expected to cost €70,000, to determine what tasks teachers actually perform and how much time they take, with the aim of developing recommendations to keep workloads within legally mandated hours.
Ahead of that study, teacher Heleriin Paeoja decided to document her own working hours during an ordinary September week at her new school, recording every task and how long it took.
Day by day
On Monday she spent seven hours at school, followed by more preparation at home in the evening, bringing the day's total to 9 hours 15 minutes. Tuesday was the toughest day, exceeding 10 hours, with back-to-back classes and evening work on a parent-conference scheduling system and lesson materials. Wednesday came to seven hours. Thursday, though free of classes, still involved meetings and grading, totaling about 5.5 hours. Friday, also without classes, required updating course records and communicating with parents and students, taking four hours. On the weekend she prepared differentiated materials for advanced students and built a registration form for a school trip to Barcelona, adding roughly 8.5 hours across Saturday and Sunday.
A 44-hour week
Added together, Paeoja worked at least 44 hours and 15 minutes that week — despite being on a 0.9 contract, which should correspond to 31.5 hours rather than the full 35-hour load. That amounts to 13 hours of unpaid overtime in a single week.
Paeoja notes that much of this time went toward tasks that are largely invisible: searching for suitable teaching materials, giving individual feedback, communicating with parents, supporting colleagues, and adapting lessons for students with different needs — work that official descriptions of the teaching profession often fail to capture.
