Japan Press Weekly

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2016 July 20 - 26 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Increase in the number of regular teachers essential to guarantee children’s right to education: expert

Many public elementary and junior high schools across the country cannot obtain substitute teachers for teachers on sick or maternity leaves due to teacher shortages, which is undermining children’s right to education.

At a public junior high school in Osaka, when the English and math teachers for third-grade students separately took sick and maternity leaves a few years ago, the school could not find substitute teachers for them. Their colleagues tried to make up the shortfall, but the third-graders had to just sit in their seats several times a week and this situation lasted for more than six months until graduation.

At an elementary school in Kochi Prefecture, a teacher went on sick leave in April, just a few weeks after being put in charge of a class and therefore another teacher for children with special needs had to take charge of this class. The school has yet to obtain a substitute.

At another elementary school in Kochi, a class was operated without a homeroom teacher for a month after the predecessor resigned in April. The school hired the successor in May, but the person had no experience as a class teacher.

There is another example of teacher shortages in Kochi: at the start of the 2015 school year, public elementary and junior high schools in the prefecture had a total of 11 vacancies that needed to be filled.

Nagoya University Associate Professor Ishii Takuji said that a chronic shortfall in teaching staff is becoming the norm throughout the country.

Ishii pointed out that the law on compulsory education standards was amended in 2001 to allow schools to use non-regular teachers to meet the standard of the minimum number of teaching staff. Since then, the number of non-regular teachers has greatly increased. Now, more than one in ten teachers work on fixed-term contracts in some prefectures. As a result, the educational expert concluded, schools are unable to accept additional staff because they have already reached their quota of non-regular teachers.

Ishii noted that although more and more regular teachers take sick leaves due to stress-induced mental problems, schools have little hope of finding a sufficient number of substitute teachers under the current situation.

Citing that many teachers are forced to shoulder excessively heavy workloads to make up for the labor shortage, the associate professor warned that if those teachers damage their health because of overwork, they will get caught in a vicious cycle.

Ishii explained that as the turnover rate has been high in the last ten years, the number of teachers in their 40s, who are in the prime of their working lives, is relatively scarce. On the other hand, he went on to explain, the number of teachers in their 20s, early 30s, and 50s are relatively plentiful but they are more likely to take leaves in order to take care of small children or aged parents. Behind this situation lies the poor social security system concerning childcare and nursing-care services, Ishii said.

Ishii maintained that the key to solve the teacher shortage issue is to drastically increase the number of regular teachers, not non-regular ones. Pointing out that children are the future leaders of Japan and are therefore the most important asset to the country, Ishii underscored the need to ensure that all children can enjoy a quality educational opportunity regardless of where they live.