Is a four-day teaching week good for Queensland children and teachers?
This question has been generated by the release of updated guidelines, effective on Jan. 22, 2024, by the Education Department of the Queensland government.
It will allow the trialling of flexible school hours and foreshadows changes to the number of school days, even a four-day school week, with Wednesday a non-teaching day.
“Any changes to school hours must occur in consultation with the school community, continue to allow schools to meet Prep—Year 12 ... curriculum delivery requirements, the needs of all students and staff at their school, and not disadvantage any group of students,” the guidelines say.
The guidelines do not give state schools the green light to introduce the four-day school week.
However, the procedural guidelines, in allowing a four-day school week, expect students to focus on their schoolwork at home during the non-teaching day or acquire vocational skills—pure optimism and unrealistic.
The four-day workweek is already trialled by Medibank.
In a school context, proponents of this change argue that the shorter work week is justified because it would improve the mental well-being of teachers and other school staff without adversely affecting students’ learning.
The mental well-being of teachers and the need to provide a non-stressed work environment have undoubtedly provided a huge impetus.
An Already Failing System
Critics of the compression of the teaching week into four days argue that it will further compromise the education of Queensland students.For them, students already fail to benefit optimally from the present school system, which seems more interested in indoctrination. The recent statement by the Victorian premier to allow students to participate in pro-Palestinian rallies provides an excellent example.
The Australian curriculum now encourages students to study the history and culture of Indigenous Australia. While this is commendable, it often comes at the expense of reading, writing, and mathematics skills, and the study of the history of Western civilisation.
Undoubtedly, students—from primary school to higher education—know truly little about the history of Australia and are largely ignorant of international historical and political developments and, hence, are prone to accept any distorted interpretation of history.
Many students do not read (certainly not the classics of literature), cannot spell properly or think analytically.
So, it is baffling that one would expect an improvement in the analytical ability of students and possession of knowledge by trialling a four-day teaching week.
Although this movement does not provide a definitive answer as to whether it benefits students, teachers, and the wider society, it assumes that educational goals will not be compromised and that the perceived health benefits justify the implementation of these flexible arrangements.
In Whose Interest?
The most important problem is that the guidelines conflate the interests of two relevant stakeholders: the teachers and the students.While the concerns of these two stakeholder groups may intersect, they do not overlap and may well compete with each other. Indeed, what is good for teachers may be bad for students.
The premise behind the push for a four-day teaching week is simple: a shorter teaching week without a lowering of teachers’ salaries, while maintaining productivity, will not compromise the learning goals of students.
It may well be that a four-day teaching week may improve the work-family balance of teachers—they often claim to be stressed out by their present teaching schedule—and result in greater happiness for teachers.
But will it also be beneficial for students? How will it impact students’ learning outcomes?
There is the danger of students disconnecting themselves outside of official study days.
I know of students who refuse to read books (to enhance their reading skills) during school holidays because “holidays are not for study-related purposes.”
There is a danger that by reducing the teaching days to four, neither teachers nor students will benefit because flexibility is the natural enemy of discipline, which is necessary for learning success throughout life.
