The bar chart compares four countries in terms of how many hours of teaching experience their teachers had in three school levels in 2001. Overall, the number of teaching hours increased with school level, and teachers in the USA spent more hours than those in the other countries.
Looking at time allocated to high school lessons, an average US teacher had nearly 1,200 hours. This was 300 hours more than the time spent by teachers in Spain and Iceland, each at around 900 hours. Japan, however, came slightly behind these countries, with around 700 hours of classes.
In middle school, the numbers were considerably lower. While American schools recorded 1,000 hours of classes – the highest figure, those in Spain taught for around 750 hours. Lower than this were the teaching hours of Icelandic and Japanese teachers, who spent only around 600 and 650 hours in class, respectively.
As regards primary school, the USA was still leading the chart with around 750 teaching hours. Teachers in the other three countries were less busy, spending approximately 600 hours teaching primary school children — around 150 hours fewer than in the USA.