Learning time: a simple reform schools can implement
People come into teaching for many reasons. For most, it is a job that pays the bills. For some, it offers stability. For a few, it is a calling. Yet teaching is different from most other professions in one important way: at its heart, it is meant to be a career where learning itself is central.
Ironically, once the job begins, learning is often the first thing to disappear.
What initially attracts many people to teaching is the joy of ideas — reading, thinking, explaining, and discovering alongside students. But over time, teaching becomes a task. Syllabi must be completed. Portions must be covered. Administrative work grows steadily. Meetings, records, inspections, and compliance slowly consume the working day. The original intellectual spark that drew people to teaching is quietly extinguished.
One simple reform schools can make is to deliberately keep that spark alive.
Every school should formally create learning time within a teacher’s weekly schedule. This time should be clearly protected and explicitly meant for learning — reading a serious book, taking a short online course, exploring a new subject, or engaging with ideas beyond one’s immediate classroom needs. It should not be used for lesson planning orw administrative tasks. It should exist for one reason alone: intellectual renewal.
This suggestion is not born out of criticism of teachers, but out of respect for the profession. Teaching is one of the few careers where society quietly assumes that learning ends once a degree is earned and a job is secured. In almost every other profession — medicine, engineering, law, research — continuous learning is expected and valued. Yet even in those fields, learning is often narrow and utilitarian.
Teaching, paradoxically, is lucky. It allows for genuine lifelong learning across disciplines — literature, science, philosophy, technology, history, psychology. Few professions offer such freedom. Schools should recognise this strength instead of allowing it to wither.
Our education system has not helped. Degrees earned many years ago are often treated as permanent proof of competence. But knowledge ages quickly. What matters today is not what someone studied long ago, but whether they are still learning. Teaching is uniquely positioned to model lifelong learning — but only if schools create the conditions for it.
Learning time must therefore be institutional, not optional. Headmasters and principals play a crucial role here. Learning cannot depend solely on individual motivation. School leadership must signal clearly that learning is part of the job.
A practical model is possible. Schools can allocate two to three hours a week as learning time for teachers. This may require rethinking schedules, reducing low-value administrative work, or questioning routines that consume time without improving teaching. Surely, in a full working week, two or three hours can be found — especially if we are honest about how much time is currently lost to tasks that do not benefit students or teachers meaningfully.
At the end of each academic term, teachers should be invited to share what they have done during their learning time. This could be a short presentation, a reflection, or a discussion with colleagues. The purpose is not evaluation, but visibility. Learning becomes part of the school’s shared intellectual life.
Some will argue that teachers may waste this free time. This criticism is not entirely unfounded. Some will misuse it. But this is not a reason to abandon the idea. Over time, when teachers are asked to speak about what they have learned, it becomes evident who has engaged seriously and who has not. The motivated will shine. The disengaged will reveal themselves quietly, without policing or confrontation.
This, in fact, is one of the strengths of the approach. Learning time becomes a natural way to identify teachers who are curious, committed, and intellectually alive. These are precisely the teachers the system should encourage, recognise, and promote. Career progression and rewards should take into account not just years of service, but the quality of engagement with learning.
Another criticism is workload. Teachers already work hard. This is true. But that is precisely why learning must be built into the job rather than added on top of it. When learning is pushed into evenings or weekends, it becomes a burden. When it is recognised as part of professional work, it becomes renewal.
If this reform is taken seriously, the impact is profound. Teachers grow in confidence and clarity. Staffroom conversations deepen. Classrooms become more thoughtful spaces. Students sense that their teachers are alive to ideas. Parents notice the difference. The school’s academic culture strengthens quietly, without slogans or superficial reforms.
Headmasters and principals have more influence than they often realise. By creating learning time, protecting it, valuing it publicly, and linking it to professional growth, they can transform the intellectual life of their schools.
Learning should not end with the teaching job. A school that understands this truth does more than deliver education — it preserves the very spirit of learning itself.