[Info. File] Measures for Teachers’ Work-Style Reform and Securing Human Resources for Teachers

What work style reform aims to achieve

Regarding the goals of teacher work style reform, the Central Council for Education (hereafter, CEC) states:

"By addressing long working hours, we aim not only to protect teachers' health but also to ensure their well-being by enriching their quality of life and professional careers, as well as to enhance their humanity and creativity, enabling them to provide a better education to children"
(CEC, "Urgent Measures to Improve the Teacher Environment," 2023).

Furthermore, the Council aims to create a high-quality teaching staff by improving teachers' qualifications and abilities.

According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's "Survey on Teacher Work Conditions" (2022, final figures), released in April 2024, elementary school teachers' daily school hours have decreased from six years ago (2016), to 10 hours and 45 minutes on weekdays. However, the maximum weekly overtime limit (45 hours per month) is exceeded in 64.5% of elementary schools and 77.0% of junior high schools, demonstrating the continuing trend of long working hours.

Optimization of operations

One of the current efforts being emphasized is the optimization of the work that teachers are responsible for. In its 2019 report, the Central Council for Education proposed the following "three classifications of work that schools and teachers are responsible for."

Source: Compiled by the author

1) Tasks that should generally be handled by parties other than the school
: "Handling commuting to and from school," "patrols after school and at night, and handling cases where students are taken into custody," "collection and management of school fees," and "communication and coordination with local volunteers."

2) Tasks that are school responsibilities but do not necessarily require teachers to
: "responding to surveys and statistics," "responding to students during recess," "cleaning the school grounds," and "club activities."

3) Tasks that are teachers' responsibilities but can be reduced
: "responding to lunchtime activities," "lesson preparation," "learning assessments and grade processing," "preparing and running school events," "career guidance," and "responding to students and families in need of support."

Of these, the tasks that showed the greatest improvement over the past year were "handling commuting to and from school," "collection and management of school fees," and "lesson preparation." (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, "Survey on School Work Style Reform Initiatives in Boards of Education in FY2023." Published in December 2023, the survey was conducted as of October 2023.)

The survey report also introduces examples of local initiatives based on these three categories.

• School arrival times will be revised to allow teachers more time to arrive at work (Wake Town, Okayama Prefecture)
• School fees are now included in public accounting, and schools no longer handle collection or collection procedures (Gero City, Gifu Prefecture)
• Utilizing the system of the school management council, individuals and local companies register as school supporters and carry out outreach classes and company visits (Kunbetsu Town, Hokkaido)
• The prefectural superintendent of education made the final decision to reduce schools' paperwork burden by about half (Yamanashi Prefecture)
• Lesson plans and teaching materials created by the Board of Education and each school are stored in a shared folder using ICT, in an effort to reduce the time spent researching teaching materials and improve the quality of lessons (Hirakata City, Osaka Prefecture)

Improved working conditions

Regarding improving the treatment of teachers, a special committee of the Central Council for Education is currently discussing the issue, and it seems that the majority of opinions are in favor of maintaining the current framework of the Special Salary Act, which does not pay overtime but instead adds a uniform 4% adjustment to salary. However, it has also been pointed out that it is realistically difficult for managers to determine the overtime hours of each teacher, and that it is inappropriate to apply overtime pay to teachers, who are highly specialized occupations, and therefore a proposal has been made to raise the adjustment amount to 10% or more

Innovations in conducting recruitment examinations

Another major issue is securing high-quality teachers. To that end, there are suggestions for promoting the appeal of the teaching profession, providing support for training, and helping students repay their scholarships

In order to secure human resources, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has requested that local governments move up the timing of recruitment exams, which have been held around July each year. Starting in 2024, some local governments are moving the exam date forward to before the standard date of June 16th, and some are even holding the exam twice a year. In 2025, the standard date will be moved up even further, to May 11th

(Revised and expanded version of the article in the May 2024 issue of EN-ICHI FORUM)

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