Overview
- The Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled on Thursday that a retired Hannover elementary-school principal is not entitled to compensation and set aside the Oberverwaltungsgericht Lüneburg’s roughly €31,435 award.
- The court said the extra hours the principal logged reflected his own choice rather than an employer-ordered duty and explained that teachers cannot unilaterally extend their weekly working time and demand pay without first reporting overload to their employer.
- Judges distinguished binding teaching-hour obligations from non‑specified tasks such as lesson preparation, correction and administration and said how long those tasks take depends on individual circumstances rather than fixed statutory hours.
- The court acknowledged systematic problems in how teachers’ working time is recorded but said the case did not require it to set standards, effectively leaving the matter of mandatory, employer-led time recording unresolved.
- Unions reacted with disappointment and vowed to press for better recording and relief measures while state education officials said they will pursue steps to ease school workloads, a debate driven by surveys showing many teachers work large amounts of unpaid overtime.