My teaching load is 80 hours per year. However, in medicine teaching never ends because it continues in the management of the clinical case to the bedside of learning diagnostic techniques such as ultrasound and endoscopy. And the hours devoted to such activities are never calculated and evaluated.

Nizar,

You have proposed an interesting topic.  In the U.S. we find the move away from full time professors and towards an adjunct faculty to be an increasing pressure on educational efficacy, in my opinion.  The fact that we have commoditized education to the point where it is a fetish commodity has done more harm than good by some accounts, particularly on the professoriate, and on students' experience of educational quality.  The question I have is whether or not we can sustain solid educational praxis with a part time faculty.  I think not, as writing lessons plans that are fresh, reflexive, and responsive does not seem to be high on the 'to do' list of part time faculty.  Intuitively, those that are full time teachers and seek overtime fall into what seems to be a similar category, especially with research responsibilities added on.  No time.  So the result is a crafting of lesson plans, of curriculum and so forth, to the point that they become off the shelf versions of authentic teaching, rather than the real thing.  As we continue to look for the next disruptive innovation in education, faculty loads, the reliance on adjunct, faculty, off the shelf courseware, and other conditions of higher education as a commodity may have to be re-thought.

Interesting issue!

In my university, a faculty teaches 4 or 5 courses per semester (each course is 3 credits)

In my university the Syndicate adapted a procedure for it and in most cases the faculty follow it. The procedure is for professor there are 6 crdt. hrs. per week, for Associate it is 9, for Assistant it is 12 and for the lecturer it is 15crdt. hrs per day. 

In my personal view it is not justifiable as it usually affect the research activities of the teaching in the universities. what you think?????????????????. 

Dear Dr. Jon Butler, Thank you for being the first to respond & for your valuable contribution. It is sad to see commercialization of an educational process because, as you know, money will talk & science will listen & not vice versa. As the administration seeks to increase university income, the staff as well move to increase their monthly income. One of the ways is to try to take as much overtime as possible. Some of them changed contents or cancelled courses as a devious way to include alternative (but illogical) courses for the sole purpose of having it as overtime. It is tragic that  such scholars have betrayed the codes of honesty towards students for personal selfish gains.

Dear Dr. Fernando Gonzalez Aleu, Thanks a lot for your important contribution. When a lecturer teaches 4 or 5 courses, I think this means by the credit system 12 to 15 hours per week. Having an additional course besides the 4 is bearable but when it is more than that then many good qualities will be hit hard.  

Dear Dr.Muhammad Israr, Thank you for your nice input. Many universities in the Middle East have the same policy as was decided by your university. It is a system which can be tolerated & will give time for additional academic activities. When the load becomes 18 or 21 credit hours/week then this will be at the expense of good education. 

Dear Nizar,

You have addressed an interesting and complex issue as usual. To my opinion, those to whom teaching is a curse should leave academia for industry. Teaching is an elemental part of academic activity in order to transfer your knowledge (fulfill yourself) and attract students for your ongoing undergraduate and postgraduate programs. On the other hand, this can be viewed very differently from person to person and from country to country. If someone is able to and can manage to find plenty of research founding can see this from another perspective than who cannot. For example, someone who has 3-4 or more PhD students can delegate most of the practical courses and the supervision of undergraduates to them. With a little exaggeration (?), he/she only needs to correct the almost ready manuscripts of PhD students (or throw it back for revision) and to write new proposals in optimal cases with weakly discussions, beside teaching. Both his/here teaching and research is than secured. The situation is quite different for somebody who has no PhD students or only 1-2 and very little money for research. The latter of course depends very much on the country where the scholar lives. Such a person certainly will be overloaded with 12 hrs teaching if he/she wants to keep up his/here research on top level. In these cases cooperation with others could help, but the private life of such a person will probably be much more under stress than that of whom, who has easy access to research founding and to helping hands. In longer term, this leads first to some sacrifice on research activity.

Best regards,

                           Imre

Dear Professor Imre, I appreciate your valuable contribution to this discussion. I think that a good time management is needed. As you mentioned, there has to be an effort to make ends meet since the duties may involve supervision of postgraduate students, lectures, and practicals. I liked very much your idea for delegating the practicals to PhD students. In our university, an opposite situation occurs unfortunately: 2 elderly lecturers & me (I am also old) are given the  organic chemistry practicals while other young colleagues from other departments (who can teach the practicals) are given lectures & are trying hard to get maximum overtime money from additional courses!  (as you know, there are electrophiles & nucleophiles in chemistry but there also young moneyphiles outside our chemistry department !).

Dear Nizar,

I am sad to hear that the competencies and tasks are a bit upside down at your university. As a postgraduate student I needed to give two practical courses (2x6 hrs per week) 33 years ago in my Alma mater in Hungary! So, it was not my idea, but already a common practice and part of the education of postgraduates also in other countries in Europe. In the Netherlands, USA and other European countries they went even further already at that time. The supervision of undergraduates (their research) was also delegated to postgraduates. Then only the postgraduates needed to report to the supervisor prof. (sometimes monthly!). Nowadays this became a common practice overall in Europe. Because the postgraduate student needs about 5 publications to get the PhD degree, most of the pressure lyes on him/here in the actual research. I does not mean of course that the supervisor scholar can lean back and his/here life is free of stress. Beside lecturing, he or she needs to act like a manager (and also teacher) of postgraduates and needs to use all means to get the money and students for continuing the mainstream of his research. Needless to say that this is very difficult in poor or not so rich countries. As above already implied, if once somebody finds him/herself in a situation having no research founds and/or postgraduate students his/here research gets into a vicious circle, i. e. he/she won't able to publish enough to get founding. If somebody still insist on research it is better to leave for a research institute (or for another country). Otherwise, one can also fullfill him/herself as a very honourable and distinquished scholar without doing any research. 

Best regards,

                             Imre

Dear Prof. Imre,  Yes to what is going on in European universities. I was a teaching assistant in England for 2 years when I did my PhD. But we have, here, a bizarre case: After the senior lecturers, including me, trained young scholars to overtake practicals (in order that they learn the art !), they opted for the easier theoretical lectures trying to take them from us completely (for the sake of overtime money). In other words, they want to eat the meat & throw the bones to us.

Just a simple note for dear RG colleagues who will add comments: I have not sent messages after posting the question because I became busy, still busy, and I'll stay busy for another week starting from Monday (yesterday). I hope that you will forgive me if I do not comment on your contributions in the coming few days. Thanking you.

Dear Dr Nizar,

There is a need of deep reform in the art of teaching. Teachers form people to pay them little money. This is similar to women in many cultures who reared their boys to have many girl friends. THey could educate a child to treat women well. But they were happy if their male children had no respect for women later in life. So, they form their opressor from their first years of life when they could show other ways of living. Teachers are not different. Most of the teachers that discover their real role in the teaching process are better paid and are respected by students and school administrators. As I have said many times here, probably teaching is the only profession which has not suffered  changes throughout history. Teachers do not follow their time most of the cases. Most of the professions do not look like what they were in the past to what they are today. 

Dear Vilemar, Thank you for your good contribution. The example you gave is true & is similar to that of a man who raises & cares about a wolf which will , later on, eat the man. I do not think that there is much genuine respect for the elderly scholars in many parts of the world. The trouble is, in some universities, that the younger scholars will change course plans (and accuse the elderly  of giving out-dated courses) just for the sake of taking extra courses or for overtime money. Although, as you & I know, there are benchmarks for any basic or introductory course e.g. organic chemistry or biochemistry. But the young amateurs will skip that aiming at personal monetary gains; that is how university education is destroyed!

The official workload of teachers in Indian Universities is:

1. Professor: 14 hrs teaching per week, 36 hrs stay per week, actually professors stay 48 hours

2. Associate Professor: 16 hrs teaching per week, rest as professors

3. Assistant professor: 16 hrs teaching per week, rest as professors

4. Governance: Professors are also devoting time for university administration and governance as per official requirements

5. Research: Guiding and doing research

Professors, if not all, are really overburdened!

Dear Prof. Subhash Kundu, I think professors in India are overloaded with teaching work. If I understand well, the stay means office hours. Therefore, little time is left for doing good research & I may conclude that overtime is rare in your universities. The question is: are there attempts to change this exhausting educational system? 

Dear Nizar,

There is no question of overtime. Stay period means minimum one has to stay in department in addition to class work. After class, one can devote time on research and administration.

I think there is no scope for change in this system, as bureaucratic system prevails.

In academia overtime is not much relished upon by teacher's as they are asked to cover portions of syllabus not covered or not understood by students, as these for no extra money for the effort and time. These are selfless deeds of teachers.

Dear Prof. C. Lewis Kausel, Thank you for your valuable contribution from which I understood that FT scholars do not have limits on teaching loads & that the PT scholars are brought to help on temporary basis. This is fine but the academic process must be centered about the human aspects because these humans are not machines. It is astonishing how persons are ready to work from 7 a.m to 9 p.m without thinking about the subsequent exhaustion & fatigue! This is not normal life.

Dear Prof. Krishnan Umachandran, You are welcome to this discussion.

In the second semester, a colleague was offered overtime money to teach a class which contained those who failed in general chemistry in the first semester. However, she complained to me that the task would be extremely difficult so I told her that I would be ready to help. Since there was an order to her, I was not involved. She really became tired out & I have recently congratulated her about ending the job of teaching that class in particular. Sometimes, I feel that teaching is more hard than a job in the construction of buildings.

Teaching is as hard as other jobs inflicting more preparation customized to student levels. It's a "unity in diverse" approach - students of different absorption levels yet in same class room. There's a lot of emotional pressure on the teacher, to see that all the students relish their teaching and learning from it. Every teacher wants all their students to do well in their course work, it therefore requires whether paid ( mostly not) for the extra effort and time.

Here, I spend extra hours to coach weak students, but don't get any payment.  I also spend hours doing and writing research without extra payment.  Work hours are 8-5, but most of the time is for students.  It's become a responsibility to coach students until they can perform.  If I want to do some paid work at another college or university, I can work for 4 hours a week, but my director must approve of this.

We need to get our work - life balance to survive and thrive. (Sorry I have been so busy recently.)

From the 3 contributions of dear professors C. Lewis Kausel , Krishnan Umachandran, and  Miranda Yeoh, one may conclude that:

1) There are (workaholics) in the teaching job at some universities & this is bound to affect their health, sooner or later, in a negative way.

2) There are some universities in which extra work is done without being paid. If the monthly salary is "fat", then this is fine BUT if this salary is meager then I can see that there is exploitation.

Anyhow, will the university academic scholars move collectively to gain more adequate "deserved" rights? This is the question.

I have never had over time at University. Such practice with too many hours may bring the lesser quality of teaching with many consequences. The HE Law should treat this practice in terms of number of hours, duration period of over-time and many other aspects in order to ensure quality of Higher Education.

Some research should bring the detailed results of over-time practice.

Dear Prof . Ljubomir Jacić, 

A highly valuable contribution comes from you. I agree that a HE law ought to tackle the problem of overtime because there has been an abuse on this matter. Examples: 1) A scholar will ask the head of a department to give him as much  overload as possible , even if it meant doubling the usual load of 12 hours/week. Such scholar is hitting hard both his health & the educational process (since the later lectures will be badly affected).

2) A head of department will try to gain the hearts of X & Y by overtime work (more money !) but will not give W & Z so this will cause internal conflicts.

3) Some scholars thought of tricks to gain overtime money so they played with the course plans  & attacked existing course descriptions in order to shape up courses that will serve their pockets, nothing else. This is, of course, against the interests of the students.

In my opinion, if there is any need for overtime work then it has to be limited, say to no more than 3 hour- lectures/week. Any load, more than that, is counter-productive.

Teaching load can greatly affects learning quality. Often academicians do much more than, sometimes willingly in order to earn overtime but usually reluctantly under compulsion. So, overtime lecturing is okay to the extent it doesn’t affect the quality of teaching.   

In India, overtime is not paid. One has to devote a lot of extra time for research and administration.

 A very good point is presented by Dr. Yogesh Tripathi. In some universities in a developed country, some scholars became "addicted" to overtime lecturing (or the money gained by it) although the monthly salaries, there, are more than adequate. I read in the internet about a university in which a scholar becomes angry at the beginning of the semester if the schedule does not contain extra load as if "overtime" has become the rule & not the exception. In that article, the university's administration favored "overtiming" because it is cheaper than appointing new full-time scholars.These attitudes ought to be looked at when studies are made about the "decline" of the quality of universities' graduates in many places.

Dear Prof. Subhash C. Kundu, I agree with utilizing time for research & administration. May I conclude that if there is a need for an overtime (e.g. when a scholar replaces an ill colleague), then the person doing extra work will not be paid? Or will s/he be rewarded in a different way ? Or does the university bring a part-timer ?

My teaching load is 80 hours per year. However, in medicine teaching never ends because it continues in the management of the clinical case to the bedside of learning diagnostic techniques such as ultrasound and endoscopy. And the hours devoted to such activities are never calculated and evaluated.

 Dear Professor Ierardi Enzo, Thank you for your valuable participation in the discussion. The noble specialization of medicine is one from which I escaped after my high school although I got acceptance from Delhi University. The immense responsibility , which requires long hours, is beyond my capability. I hope that they are generous in paying you a fair salary for your high quality work which extends to many hours. At a "certain" university, the scholars in health sciences favor lectures over practicals & they sought overtime money from theoretical lectures in science courses & not from medical or pharmaceutical courses!! They attacked the well-established faculty of science in terms of courses' contents "that are taught by highly experienced lecturers" but, fortunately, they lost their unfair battle.

I postponed my comment on the statement of dear Dr. Miranda Yoeh ( If I want to do some paid work at another college or university, I can work for 4 hours a week, but my director must approve of this.).

Imagine a director approves under the condition of teaching the 4 hours on Saturday only "which is a holiday at the other university", is this a logical approval or is it really a disapproval ? Are there good or bad intentions in such conditional approval ?

Dear Nizar Matar,

In such cases, University generally appoints teaching associate. However, there is no provision of paid extra work.

Thank you dear Prof. Subhash Kundu for answering my question. Appointments, if based on merits, are better than paid extra work. In India, I can see educational systems that have avoided the problems of overtime or seeking overtime money.In my opinion & on the basis of my humble experience, your universities are doing well in this respect.

Thanks for understanding the true sense!

A very good article, about the problems of overtime work, is given in the link below. The problems are for general overtime but can be applied to academic institutions in many ways. Money ought not cause blindness in a scholar since extra work means extra responsibility as well as possible ill-effects upon the scholar, the family, the students, the country, and even the world at large.

http://www.circadian.com/blog/item/22-5-negative-effects-of-high-overtime-levels.html?tmpl=component&print=1#.VWS221OqP7U

Dear Nizar Matar,

Good article!

Additional is ---- overtime leads to stress/burnout that adversely affects the family.

 Dear Professor Marković G. Đoko has summerized nicely the overtime issue in academia: It is ,sometimes, an evil necessity because it will be at the expense of other valuable things in the life of the scholar. In some places, those who give overtime work, recieve the overtime money after more than 9 months. This late money is usually not that "sweet" addition and ,sometimes,it is a "bitter" one.

In general, the overtime a curse upon the university scholar. But the lack of staff in the universities enforce to overtimes. Some years,my load was 28 hour every week.

Research Labs

Working hours in lab are typically 8 or 9 hours per day. Also labs have a 9/80 schedule that gives you a day off every other week. Most staff also typically work some overtime (up to two hours per day charged as flextime).

Our team has a lot of talent. I hope that soon we will break out with four or five goals and avoid overtime.

--- Peter Bondra

Teaching overtime is blessing for people who are just experienced in teaching, but not to research and its application. Even such classes are not paid more, they ask for classes!!! That is what happened in my vicinity.

I have always looking for much more time available for applied research and industry cooperation! Of course, good time management between education and research is possible.

Dear  Roland,

Very informative and interesting Paper!

Overtime in Academia does not benefit the organisation. It increases the cost without increase in the productivity.

I must apologize for my dear respected RG colleagues (George, Qasim, Roland, Krishnan, Subhash, Lujbomir, and Darko) for not noticing their valuable contributions for more than one month. The reason was my inability to actively participate in RG due to electricity cuts, internet disconnections, and damage of my PC monitor & other home devices in nearly 50 "odd" days. I used to borrow a small laptop from a student for short time during these days to see RG & the messages and I tried to give replies to many of them. You may be surprised that I little looked at my profile to see new answers to my questions. My RG score decreased twice during these days!

I, now, write this contribution using a second-hand monitor because buying a new one is risky since "unwaranted" cutting of electricity is going to continue with expected damages to electronic devices. 

Very serious situation. Dear Nizar.

Still you are on RG, it's the motivation!

Working overtime hours: relations with fatigue, work motivation, and the quality of work!

Nice discussion was ongoing here : Do you regularly work overtime and in weekends? If so, why??

https://www.academia.edu/608828/Working_overtime_hours_relations_with_fatigue_work_motivation_and_the_quality_of_work

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/comments/2me11k/do_you_regularly_work_overtime_and_in_weekends_if/

 "Our team has a lot of talent. I hope that soon we will break out with four or five goals and avoid overtime."

--- Peter Bondra

It is definitely a blessing because of the challenges and the breakthrough one make

In Spain, the number of hours of a full university teacher is 8 hours of teaching and 6 hours of attention to students per week. This allows to teachers to dedicate hours to research. But when there are not fruits of research, without publications, 14 hours of dedication per week is not a strong work. These hours do not include correction of exams and revisions of them, administrative work, etc.

How might overtime change affect middle class? Look at colleges. US story!

New rules regulating overtime are set to have a big impact in higher education, where PhD-educated researchers routinely work long hours...

""The administration says the change will impact some 4.2 million Americans in its first year, many of them in low-level retail management and administrative jobs. But it will also provide some relief to tens of thousands of academic researchers...

“Post docs average about $43,000 a year nationwide,” says Ross Eisenbray, an economist and vice president at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. “If they work 60 hours a week, they effectively make $15 an hour. That’s what fast food workers are asking for, and these are some of the best-educated Americans.”

“Universities take their work, use it for marketing and grants,” he continues. “A whole industry depends on these people, and they are being exploited.”..."

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2016/0518/How-might-overtime-change-affect-middle-class-Look-at-colleges

According to a study, academic professionals/Teachers show the greatest productivity gains during their first few years on the job, after which their performance tends to level off. Over 40 years of teacher productivity research suggests that the simple assumption that “more is better” requires greater nuance; experience effects are complex and depend on a number of factors. Therefore teaching beyond normal teaching hours by way of enthusiasm and motivation without compromising mental and physical health is good enough; otherwise, working overtime may negatively affect the work-life balance and productivity.

Overtime rules in academia are tricky and I personally believe it depends on the individual and institution concerned whether to take it as a blessing or a curse depending on the context. However, the Washington post article is added here for perusal.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/business/saturday_business/overtime-rules-in-academia-are-tricky/article_db5d8548-b3c6-58d5-bc59-21156e1d0004.html

Overtime working is invited for a new activity; such as to benefit the organization; while compensating the individual with monetary benefit and suitable rest for having worked the extra mile. However in regular activities it is is a drain, for compensating failures in the value chain.

I was inspired by one answer from previous page. 

Over 40 years of teacher productivity research suggests that the simple assumption that “more is better” requires greater nuance; experience effects are complex and depend on a number of factors...

An excellent article!

Our team has a lot of talent. I hope that soon we will break out with four or five goals and avoid overtime.

'Less is more' seems to be a better philosophy 

Dear colleague

Excellent and thorough responses , I agreed with the answers and explanations above.

I have recently seen 2 cases in which "greed for overtime money" can be destructive to academic departments. I am not talking about my University "which is the best in my country" but about departments in other universities.

At university (X), a department invited an experienced professor to give an advanced course. After he finished, the notebooks of 2 students were taken by one of their staff & this member started to teach the course although it is NOT his specialization. Assume that the students have made mistakes in taking notes, then the "poor" new students will be given wrong information all the time.Why was that done ? Answer: For the sake of overtime money.

At (X) university, itself, the same professor was invited again to give another advanced course within his expertise. The same story was repeated but a student's notebook was given to a member (who is a recent holder of M.Sc. in a different specialization) in order to teach that course. Again, this was done for the sake of overtime money.

When I looked at that department's schedule for this semester at their website, I noticed that each one of their small staff was given > 20 hours teaching/week (with each one having > 8 extra hours/week). It is true that they will add more "dirty" money to their bank accounts. They are doing a dishonest job & this extra money may, by God's will, go to "repair" their health later on.

Continuing the story of university (X) which I told you about last year. It was found that the game of deception was designed by 2 of the professor's students: a male & a female who work in (X). They knew that the professor was capable of teaching the 2 advanced courses so they asked his university's administration to allow him to teach these courses. When he did, they just took the notebooks of some smart students & 2 of the incapable staff in university (X) increased their overtime money by teaching from the notes taken from the professor by those students.

The professor, then, retired in October 2017 & all the staff in the concerned department in university (X) knew that. Believe me, the retired "free" professor has never been contacted or invited over one year although they know that he can teach in any place without getting permission from his last university.

What the overtime money "worshipers" forgot is a great practical course that can be taught by only 2 persons in Palestine (with the professor being one of them). That course would have added quality to the department of university (X). The professor is so angry that he decided to never prepare a manual nor teach that course in (X). Seeking overtime money greedily can lead to disastrous consequences upon the development of universities departments in Palestine & in other similar countries.

According to the need and circumstances, moderate overtime is common and fairly alright. Extreme overtime however may lead to fatigue thus affecting work-motivation, and the quality of teaching.

How many hours a week should academics work?

Some surveys show faculty putting in at least 60 hours a week, but research casts doubt on whether this is a productive routine...

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/how-many-hours-week-should-academics-work

Dear Nizar Matar , after careful reading of your last contribution, I may say that I do share your conclusion:

" Seeking overtime money greedily can lead to disastrous consequences upon the development of universities departments in Palestine & in other similar countries."

Kind regards after a long time. Good to be together again. :)

Yes I agree with you sir Dr. YOGESH CHANDRA TRIPATHI..

My friends Professors Ljubomir Jacić & YOGESH CHANDRA TRIPATHI are always welcome to participate with their meaningful rational contributions.

Academics forget, sometimes, that they are getting older at a fast rate.

A reasonable overtime work, that is actually necessary, can be understood. No to excessive overtime work because it causes fatigue, deterioration of health, and an escape from non-academic responsibilities.

That the lecturers, who are overloaded, suffer from pains in their legs was observed by a dean of a college at our university. Of course, the seekers of more overtime required medication involving muscle-relaxing creams which cause some dizziness & blackout in ageing lecturers.

Well said by Prof. Nizar, everyone has periods where they can work long hours, but this didn’t happen every day throughout their career. Also, academicians also reserve adequate time for self study to update themselves and maximize teaching efficiency.