Too Busy to Teach

Japan was proved to be the country, in which teachers in junior high schools were the busiest in the world. Teaching and Learning International Survey of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that Japanese teachers worked nearly fifty-four hours every week, far beyond the average of thirty-eight hours. Moreover, they could not be convinced in their ability to lead students. The result may cast a question on education policy of Shinzo Abe administration, which poses ideological requirements on teachers.

The main reason of long-time work was not preparation for class or projects, but supporting students’ activities out of designated job. Time for paper works were two times longer than the average. Coaching sports club after is the most typical activity after teaching in classroom. Surprisingly enough, teaching time in classroom was shorter than the average.

Mainichi Shimbun raised an example of a teacher in Fukuoka in his age of fifties, having had no holiday after the beginning of May. He went to school on 7 a.m. everyday and oversaw morning practice of club activity. He could not have a recess between classes, because he needed to make rounds in the school. After classroom, he again joined club activity and started preparation for next day on 10 p.m., when he finished consulting for students and parents. He said it as an ordinary pattern for every teacher.

Schools have a lot of problems. Teachers need to deal with collective abuse on one student, raising achievement in study, or even individual family problems of parents’ violence or child abuse. With weak communication within towns, schools need to take a roll of taking care of raising kids. In addition, bureaucracy requires them of huge amount of paper works for surveillance or reports.

Prime Minister Abe, nevertheless, is highly frustrated with current situation of education, attributing it to teachers union. He believes that Japan Teachers’ Union has not been teaching appropriate moral standard. One of his tomodachi, Naoki Hyakuta, a conservative writer and member of board of directors of Japan Broadcasting Corporation labeled JTU as “cancer in Japan.”

Those ideological pressures on schools only causes more works for teachers. School leadership poses teachers more efforts to eliminate problems. Teachers would work from early morning to late at night. Political leaders and school officials do not see the impact on children suffering from ideological coercion and lethargic lesson by exhausted teachers. In short, all children are left behind.