Japan Press Weekly

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2022 December 21 - 2023 January 10 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Record number of public school teachers take sick leave due to mental health problems

The number of public school teachers who went on sick leave due to mental health problems in FY 2021 reached a record high of 5,897, up 694 from the previous year. This was shown in the survey results which the Education Ministry published on December 26.

The details of the 5,897 were 2,937 for elementary school teachers, 1,415 for junior high teachers, 742 for senior high teachers, and 772 for teachers of special schools for disabled children.

As a possible factor behind the increase in mental health problems among teachers, Akahata pointed out that along with the excessively long working hours, heavy workloads of teachers, undue control by the government over teachers, and the COVID-19 pandemic situation placed a greater mental burden on teachers.

In the Education Ministry survey of public school teachers’ working hours which was released on December 23, 53.7% of junior high school teachers in 2022 worked more than 45 hours of overtime every month.

The survey also indicated that 13.7% of junior high teachers worked overtime for more than 80 hours per month, and that 4.8% of the 13.7% worked 100-plus hours of overtime. These teachers’ overtime work exceeds the government-set danger line for “karoshi (death from overwork)”.

As for elementary and senior high school teachers, the percentage of those who worked 45 or more hours of overtime a month reached nearly 40%.

It is highly likely that the actual number of overtime hours worked per month is much longer than the hours shown in the survey as it failed to include the number of hours that teachers spent on take-home work.