As Michael Gove continues his personal mission to make British schools a little more work-house like and less of a national handicap in the “global race” to nowhere, Margaret Hodge has suggested MPs might take a look at their own work habits. “It feels as if we are hardly working,” she told the Guardian. “Members of the public would be forgiven for thinking that it is MPs who are lazy and that it is parliament that is failing to provide good value for money.”
A little comparison is in order. This year the Commons are expected to sit for fewer than 140 days. During the 2010-2012 Session, the House sat for a total of 2,342 hours and 25 minutes, which comes to 296 days over two years. During the same period, school children spent a total of 2,660 hours in school, a total of 380 days.
That’s 310 hours and 84 days more than MPs.
The Lib Dem transport minister Norman Baker responded defensively to Hodge’s claim. “Some MPs work bloody hard all year round,” he said. Edward Garnier, Conservative MP for Harborough, argued that Hodge’s claim select committees have inadequate hours to carry out their business is erroneous. “If she [Hodge] wants her committee to convene, they should be allowed to whenever they like. They do not need the house to be sitting to do so.”
Presumably, when the teachers’ unions make the same argument, the effect will be derided by an Education Secretary who keenly ignores the recommendations for shorter school days, increased flexibility and more support for teachers, which come from our Scandinavian neighbours, opting instead to lionise nations with scantly regulated school systems in East Asia.
The hours quoted above are based on my own comprehensive school’s (that is to say, the most common type of school in Britain), which are from 8.20am – 3.20pm every day, 39 weeks a year (minus 5 teacher training days). This does not did not include extracurricular activities, breakfast or after school clubs, homework, revision and the rest.
Some students work bloody hard all year round, after all.
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