Reports | The Exhaustion Economy of Education
The Polish education system combines high workload, an ageing teaching force, pay pressures and blurred work boundaries. The data do not support a simple picture of mass exodus, nor do they allow a low vacancy count to be treated as evidence of system health.
The Ouroboros reports organise teacher survey findings and public data within a work-boundaries framework. Edition IV (August 2026) is the corrected version after a methodological audit.
The system looks stable in staffing statistics while carrying clear signatures of high load and chronic readiness. The central mechanism is the blurring of work boundaries: electronic gradebooks, expectations of constant availability, and parent contact outside working hours.
Key findings (hard data)
- Total weekly working time (full-time): approx. 40 hours (TALIS 2024)
- Overall job satisfaction: 88%
- Satisfaction with salary: 20%
- Stress “a lot”: 16%
- Strong negative impact on mental health: 13%
- Active steps to change job: 10.9% (Żytko / UW–ZNP 2026)
- Planning retirement: 16.7%
- Vacant posts (16 March 2026): approx. 2,637 (stock figure, not annual turnover)
Sources differ in population, period and indicator construction; they are therefore treated as complementary, not merged into a single index.
What the data do not prove
- Low vacancies ≠ low turnover
- ZUS mental-health absence data cover the whole economy and must not be attributed to teachers
- Pay rises and their effects are two different things (no before–after design)
- High overall satisfaction does not cancel out stress or boundary erosion
For individual teachers
- Personal Report – concise practical edition with personal tools
- Personal Plus – Personal Report + Full Report + the book Burned Out (all under personal licence only)
For schools, local authorities, unions and institutions
- School Licence (1 institution)
- Local-authority Licence (up to 10 institutions)
- Institutional Licence (unions, education authorities, ministries, think-tanks)
Note on availability These reports are currently sold only through the Polish version of the site. Switch to the Polish version to purchase.
Free materials Executive Summary and Executive Brief available free of charge.
Link to the theoretical series The reports build on concepts developed in:
- The Tired System (lock-in)
- Burned Out (boundary leveraging)