Nearly 40% of junior high school teachers in Japan still work to death which about 80 hours a month, exceeding the line for death from overwork

4 comments

1. Article written in Japanese:

   https://newsdig.tbs.co.jp/articles/-/461965

2. So it’s 80 hrs overtime per month? That’s 4 hours of overwork per work day, right?

3. Our rural school has 2 classes of 39 kids in multiple grades. The neighbouring school is larger (4 classes per grade) and has similar class sizes.

   At our school, the principal answers the school telephone as there is no admin staff to help. It’s not a small school, it’s just understaffed.

   I presume that they have a shoestring budget as both principal and class teachers have said that they would prefer smaller class sizes but don’t have the teachers.

   The young teacher in my kid’s class gives them all masses of homework which undoubtedly dramatically increases his work hours in marking it for little to no benefit to the kids.

   Just two things I’ve noticed that changes would decrease the workload on teachers and students, and increase quality of education.

4. In the absence of meaningful union action, it will require very brave individual teachers to draw lines in the sand. I can well imagine the institutional pressure and risk of ostracisation from the faculty that weighs against this but it is needed. The reality is that most teachers care about their students and want to do well by them and this is also abused in the current system.