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We must fully recognize the reality that many teachers are still working long hours.

9 Comments

Japanese education minister Keiko Nagaoka, asking a government panel to consider ways to improve labor conditions of teachers, in a bid to secure talented personnel.

© Jiji Press

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Here's a thought: instead of asking a government panel, how about asking the teachers themselves?

12 ( +13 / -1 )

We must fully recognize the reality that many teachers are still working long hours.

We must fully recognize this already happened several years and nothing have been done about it, like many other things in Japan.

-5 ( +14 / -19 )

We must fully recognize the reality that many teachers are still working long hours.

We must fully recognize this already happened several years and nothing have been done about it, like many other things in Japan

Damn. Beat me to it.

There was an article here on JT a few years ago saying that the biggest victims of overtime AND karoshi are school teachers.

Doesn't surprise me at all.

-7 ( +13 / -20 )

"We must fully recognize this already happened several years and nothing have been done about it, like many other things in Japan"

Actually, since 3 years ago MEXT has made it mandatory for teachers to have 2 days off a week and 40 days off a year besides those two days per week. Our school has been remotely monitored to ensure it adheres to the latest regulations. We used to have to sign in with a hanko. We now have to sing in digitally. At least in our school, the regulations have been adhered to to the letter. I now have 2 full days off a week and 40 days of a year, fully paid.

8 ( +10 / -2 )

As surprising as having to recognize the Sun raises from the east. Before teachers were very good at justifying reasons to work overtime because it was allowed, now they are becoming very good at doing it without reporting.

-8 ( +5 / -13 )

Trying to face reality Is a start Minister, yes. Remember though, you are the guys charged with making solutions to problems, not simply recognizing them. The fact that teachers are overworked, underpaid and have zero agency in their own fates has been plain as day for decades. Lost ones. What’s the plan?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Allow me as a bureaucrat to do what I do best. State the flipping obvious.

-2 ( +4 / -6 )

A first and easily to establish possible measure would be to only teach necessary things instead of teaching everything else except any one of the necessary things. And of course it has to be ended, that all involved sides blame each other and put responsibilities away from themselves onto the others. A prerequisite for a successful education system would require that all sides , education board, schools, teachers, students and parents, begin to cooperate and have the same goals in view, instead of always fighting each other.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

The thing is, the Japanese education system is incredibly inefficient, especially Elementary School.

Calling every parent about every single little thing that comes up, making house visits, recreating from the ground up entire default lesson plans that have already been made just for the sake of it, engaging in pointless workshops that endlessly theorize a better future for education but never make it happen, refusing to allow teachers to stay at the same institution and instead rotating them around different schools, trying to make a generalist out of every individual, all point to the same realization: this is a foolish profession to choose. Many people realize this, and so they avoid it; the schools remain understaffed, worsening the problem via a vicious and toxic cycle.

I find it kind of hard to sympathize at this point. They're doing this to themselves. They know what the problem is and what they need to do to change it, but they're too scared of upsetting the hierarchy. So nothing changes. Just like with the facemasks. I think there's an expectation that we should automatically respect educators, but I'm weary of this philosophy. They're not soldiers being sent to fight ISIS or the Wagner Group. They're not dodging bullets or trying not to step on IEDs. Nor are they construction workers having to worry about falling to their deaths everyday. They're teachers.

Let's do this: force a closure policy on every school between 9pm to 7am. It will save power and thus reduce energy bills. Simple as that. Now they are literally forced to only focus on the essentials and work more efficiently, because they won't be able to stick around the staffroom until right before the last train anymore.

We have to acknowledge the reality: Japanese people are not helpless.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

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