TOWARD A PROPER ASSESSMENT OF THE DUTIES AND

WORK LOAD OF LECTURERS

By

Sa’idu Sulaiman

Published as an online paper in January, 2010

Introduction

The number of lecture hours per week allocated to a lecturer in a tertiary institution of
learning is neither the beginning nor the end of his/her official duties. It is therefore
improper to assess his/her duties and work load on the basis of number of lecture
hours. This write-up attempts to shed light on duties performed by lecturers, which
determine their work load, and by extension, their contribution to the educational
system and the development of their communities.

Developing synthesized and balanced lecture notes

When a lecturer is provided with a course outline by his Head of Department or a

course coordinator, he is required to consult a number of text books and current
journals in order to develop a synthesized and balanced lecture note for his students.
A lecturer can spend 10 hours in studying different texts and developing a lecture
note that can be delivered in only two hours. Some times the lecturer cannot get the
required textbooks and journals in the library established by his department or
institution of learning. Under such condition, visit to public libraries and Internet
cafés, and purchase of books and journals may become necessary.

Delivering lectures and attending to students during consultation hours

After spending two hours in delivering a lecture for a two credit course, for instance,
a lecturer may spend another hour or two attending to students that usually follow
him to his office with questions, complaints, requests and excuses. The student
population in a class is nowadays too high for most courses; this does not give room
for adequate response to students’ requests. Students therefore, have to follow
lecturers to their offices in groups for one thing or another. Consultation hours for
students writing a project under a lecturer also form part of his work load. So are
tutorial hours.

Marking and recording

When a lecturer has given a test or an assignment, he has to forego his leisure
hours at home to mark and record marks scored by each student. A lecturer handling
500 students requires an average of 2 hours to mark 50 scripts daily. Thus in 10
days he spends 20 hours for marking one test or assignment either at home or
during office hours. Two to three additional hours are spent in recording the marks
and checking names or admission numbers of careless students. This continuous
assessment is not made once in a semester, so the time spent on it goes beyond
what has been stated above. There is also the end of semester examination that
takes longer time to mark and record. If we allocate 2 hours for marking per day and
assume a two week marking period, a lecturer teaching one course to 500 students
spends 50 hours.

Carrying out periodic tasks

Lecturers also carry out periodic tasks that consume a lot of time. Teaching practice
supervision can consume up to 6 hours in a day, the same goes for supervision of
students on industrial attachment or internship. Invigilation at the end of a semester
is a task requiring a lecturer to work for an average of 6 hours per week if his name
appears 3 times in the invigilation roster. Due to large population of students, some
departments ask all lecturers to take part in invigilating all papers, so there is no
roster. Other periodic tasks are excursions and field work requiring travels to distant
places, some times days are spent instead of hours.

Shouldering administrative responsibilities

In addition to performing tasks that could be quantified by the number of hours

consumed, lecturers, like non-academic staff, carry out administrative tasks that
consume a lot of time. They serve as level coordinators, examination officers, heads
of departments, deans and sub-deans. Lecturers also serve in various committees
and as members of academic boards or the senate, etc. The energy and time they
utilize in the course of discharging these responsibilities are enormous.
Educating the general public and community service

Unlike non-academic staff and other civil servants, lecturers are often invited to
educate the general public through seminars, public lectures, radio and television
programmes, etc.

Most consultancy services required by governmental and non-governmental bodies

are provided by resource persons working in tertiary institutions. Even through they
are paid for such services, the society benefits from their indispensable and
invaluable knowledge and initiatives.

Creating knowledge and expanding its frontiers through research

Unlike the primary and the secondary school teacher, and unlike the non-academic
staff, a lecturer is required to create knowledge and expand its frontiers through
research, and to communicate this through publications. His promotion partially
depends on this. The number of hours, days and months consumed in undertaking
researches and making publications can only be imagined.

Illustration on how to determine work load for large classes

The lecturer to student ratio should be taken into consideration in computing the
work load of a lecturer. A lecturer handing a moderate class of 50 students for a 2
credit course, spends 2 lecture hours per week and may require 2 hours for tutorials
or practical, 2 hours for marking tests or assignments. When asked to teach the
same course to 500 students, he can divide them into moderate groups of 50
students each for effective learning, thus having 2 x 10 lecture hours, or into large
groups of 100 students each, thus having 2x5 lecture hours. Where this is not done,
may be due inadequate lecture rooms, the lecturer can use the only 2 hours to
deliver his lecture to the 500 students in a theatre. However, the number of hours
required for marking cannot be reduced, and learning will not be effective as some
students will be far away from the chalk board and the lecturer. Courses involving
calculations and diagrams are not suitable for large lecture rooms or theatres.
When we go beyond the limit of a moderate class size, the higher the number of
students given to a lecturer the higher the number of hours he spends to perform his
job and the lower the quality of teaching and learning, ceteris paribus.
Conclusion

Conclusively, it suffices to say that proper assessment of lecturers’ work load should
be based on the number of their students, number of courses given to them and the
credit load. Also to be considered are the estimated hours for marking assignments,
tests and examinations, and for project supervision and the undertaking of periodic
tasks like teaching practice supervision, excursion and invigilation. Other things to be
considered are administrative responsibilities given to lecturers and the time and
effort spent on research and publications.

Sa’idu Sulaiman is a Chief Lecturer with the Economics Department, and the former
Dean, School of Arts and Social Sciences, Sa’adatu Rimi College of Education,
Kumbotso, Kano, Nigeria.
E-mail address: saisulaiman@yahoo.com