Ask a teacher about the best part of a school day and the answer may be a moment in class: a pupil finally understands a difficult idea, asks a better question or gains the confidence to try again. Ask about the hardest part and the answer may come later, after the children have gone home, when lesson notes, records and marking are still waiting.
Schools need many of those tasks. Results have to be checked, families need reports and lessons deserve preparation. The question is whether the routine around teaching gives teachers enough energy for the teaching itself.
What helps a teacher stay motivated?
Start with the basics. Fair pay, a manageable timetable, respectful leadership and a safe place to work matter. A new app cannot make up for an unfair salary or a culture in which teachers are not heard. Recognition also means more than a public thank-you; it means trusting a teacher's judgement and responding when they say a routine is wasting time.
Professional growth matters too. Teachers want to become better at explaining, assessing and supporting pupils. Give them opportunities to learn with colleagues, observe good practice and discuss what worked in their own classroom. The best support treats them as skilled people whose ideas can shape the school.
Evidence from other countries helps show why workload deserves attention, though it should not be mistaken for a Nigerian survey. In the OECD's TALIS 2024 study, 52% of teachers on average across participating education systems named administrative work as a source of stress. In TALIS 2018, teachers across OECD countries reported an average of 6.5 hours a week preparing lessons and 4.2 hours marking work. The figures describe those surveys, not teachers in Nigeria. They underline a question worth asking locally: how much of a teacher's week is spent on work that could be made simpler?
Which tasks take time away from teaching?
Lesson notes are a useful example. A teacher should plan how to introduce a topic, what examples suit the class and how to find out who is lost. Copying a familiar explanation into yet another document can feel different from planning a lesson. When the form takes more attention than the children, it is time to look at the process.
Marking also has two sides. Reading a pupil's answer and choosing feedback is teaching. Repeating the same clerical step on many papers may add little to that judgement. A class register or result sheet can be important, but a school should ask how many times the same information is written and who needs each copy.
Walk through one teacher's week with them. Count the separate places they record a topic, a score or a pupil's name. Ask what would happen if one step disappeared. Do not assume every repeated task is waste: some checks prevent mistakes. The goal is to preserve the useful check while reducing the unnecessary repetition.
How can school leaders give time back?
Protect time for preparation during the working week. Keep meetings purposeful and end them when the decision has been made. Set clear expectations for lesson notes and reports so teachers do not spend an evening guessing what format a leader wants. Give teachers a way to raise a problem before it turns into frustration.
When you introduce a new routine, remove the old step it is meant to replace. Otherwise the new routine becomes another demand. Ask teachers to test it during normal work and tell you whether it actually saves effort.
The Federal Ministry of Education's eLearn platform points teachers toward curriculum-ready resources and professional development. That is the right spirit for a school: make useful material easier to find, then give teachers the space to use it thoughtfully.
What should technology do for a teacher?
Technology should help a teacher arrive prepared and leave with a clearer understanding of what pupils learned. It can offer a starting point for lesson material, organise questions around topics or make results easier to review. It should not turn teachers into operators who must follow a script without thinking.
Rubriix prepares lesson notes, explanations, worked examples and practice questions from the school's scheme of work. Teachers review and edit them before class. Rubriix also supports tests and assignments linked to teaching topics, with staff review of attempts and scores. At the end of term, it helps schools prepare branded report cards and class summaries using their grading rules.
That combination speaks to the same school week: prepare, teach, check understanding and report progress. Rubriix can ease parts of that work, while the teacher still chooses how to explain a topic, notices the pupil who needs encouragement and gives the feedback a result cannot provide on its own.
Read how lesson preparation can begin with a stronger starting point and how to make class assessments more useful.
What could your school change this term?
Ask teachers to name one task that regularly keeps them at school late or follows them home. Choose a task the school can improve without compromising care for pupils. Try a clearer routine for a month, then ask whether teachers have more time for preparation, feedback or rest.
If the pressure is lesson notes, assessments or report preparation, explore Rubriix and talk to the Rubriix team about your school. A good conversation starts with what your teachers are carrying today and what would help them give more of their energy to teaching. Learn about the people behind Rubriix.
