2015 Volume 82 Issue 1 Pages 25-35
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the workloads of Japanese teachers are increasing, through comparative analysis of the aggregated results of 14 teachers’ time use surveys for elementary school teachers and junior high school teachers in Japan. These surveys were conducted in the 1950s-60s and from the late 2000s on. The comparative analysis uses a general linear model, which is a type of regression model.
Recently, some policy makers in Japan have pointed out teachers’ workloads increasing. In particular, they emphasize that Japanese teachers’ non-teaching workloads (for example, paperwork) are increasing and that the teachers don’t have enough time to take care of their students. Moreover, some researchers in Japan have raised the same points.
However, these discussions have not been adequately examined. In addition, we need to pay attention to the reports on the workloads of Japanese teachers in the 1950s-60s. These reports pointed out that teachers had heavy workloads of paperwork at that time. This is similar to the issues raised by policy makers and researchers as above.
Based on the above, this paper tries to examine the two following points through comparative analysis of teacher working hours:
1) Are Japanese teachers’ workloads increasing?
2) Are Japanese teachers’ non-teaching workloads increasing?
The results of elementary and junior high school teachers’ time use surveys conducted in the 1950s-60s are compared with those of the surveys conducted from the late 2000s on. The results are as indicated below.
1) The amount of total working hours from the late 2000s on is larger than that of the 1950s-60s.
2) The amount of teaching hours (especially extracurricular activities) from the late 2000s on is also larger than that of the 1950s-60s.
3) The amount of non-teaching hours from the late 2000s on is not larger than that of the 1950s-60s.
According to these results, the answers to the two research questions above are as follows:
1) Japanese teachers’ workloads are increasing, just as many policy makers and researchers have pointed out recently.
2) Japanese teachers’ non-teaching workloads aren’t increasing, but the teaching workloads are increasing.
Some policy makers and researchers in Japan suggest that Japanese teachers’ non-teaching workloads are increasing. However, these suggestions cannot be correct, according to the results above. In fact, Japanese teachers’ teaching workloads (especially, extracurricular activities) are increasing, so we need to consider further what teachers and schools can teach students within a reasonable range, in order to reduce the teachers’ workloads.
