This is an important economic issue because long-range employment issues around the world are related to education.  While in the US we need stop gap measure like a massive infrastructure program to get people back to work, the future depends on education.

Generally, primary school teachers are required to spend more hours teaching than their counterparts in secondary education – a total average of 782 hours each year.

The OECD reports:  The average day lasts somewhere between 3 and 6 hours in the vast majority of countries across the world but Chile, France and the United States are notable exceptions where teachers spend in excess of 6 hours in the classroom. Those hours certainly add up in Chile where primary school teachers have 1,049 annual hours of instruction time. Australia isn’t too far behind with 1,010 while American teachers also put in a huge number of hours each year – 967.

This chart shows the annual hours of instruction time in primary education in selected countries.

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