Japan Press Weekly

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2016 March 9 - 15 [POLITICS]

JCP Tamura urges gov’t to eradicate teachers’ excessively long working hours without delay

h, the government danger line for death from overwork, Tamura said, “In order to relieve teachers from extremely long working hours and heavy workloads, the first step is to determine how long teachers actually work in an objective manner.” To achieve this, she called on the government to introduce a time card system in public schools and to carry out a survey on the actual working time of teachers.

Education Minister Hase Hiroshi replied, “To set up a system to obtain accurate information (about teachers’ working hours) is essential.”

Tamura also took up the issue that teachers’ responsibilities for running afterschool clubs is one of major factors causing their overwork.

Tamura cited data of Nagoya City showing that among teachers assigned to supervise afterschool sports clubs, most of them have performed overtime work exceeding 100 hours a month and some of them have worked seven days a week for one month without a single day off.

The Education Minister said such a situation should be corrected.

Past related articles:
> Ex-junior high school teacher spends 12 years to gain recognition of cerebral hemorrhage as work-related [March 18, 2015]
> Workload for teachers in Japan stands out in world [July 6, 2014]
> Teachers work 91 hours of overtime a month [October 18, 2013]