Teachers suffer from long working hours
January 22, 2014
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2014 January 22 - 28 [LABOR]
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“I often give an inadequate class as I can’t prepare sufficiently. Troubles keep occurring in my class. I feel like a lousy teacher. I blame myself for being unable to get things done quickly. That makes me so sad.”
A second year elementary school teacher said this in tears at a symposium dealing with excessive long working hours of teachers that was held by the All Japan Teachers and Staff Union (Zenkyo) and other organizations. Many teachers are suffering from long working hours. Some say, “I don’t have enough time to prepare for classes,” and others, “I need more time to spend with my students.”
Teachers work 69 hours 32 minutes overtime on monthly average, according to Zenkyo’s survey. While the Labor Ministry says that working more than 80 hours of overtime a month could cause death by overwork, one in three teachers works overtime for more than 80 hours and one in five for more than 100 hours each month. They take work home and spend 21 hours 41 minutes working on at home on average.
Their abnormally heavy workloads are caused by the government’s education policy which places stress on competition and control over students. Teachers have to spend a lot of time making reports and submitting various administrative documents. They are required to quantify students’ activities in detail in order to grade children based on their behavior at school.
In order to improve children’s performance on achievement tests, teachers give students many worksheets to do again and again. Some schools started weekend classes, and teachers at these schools are forced to work on Saturdays.
Many teachers are on the verge of facing death from stress and overwork. How can you expect them to give good classes? The need now is for the government to increase the number of teachers, reduce their workloads, and promote small classes so that teachers can have the time to engage in meaningful interactions with their students.
Past related article:
> Teachers work 91 hours of overtime a month [October 18, 2013]
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