Proposal to Increase Teachers' Salaries by Over 10%

Apr 19, 2024 | News On Japan

TOKYO - The Special Committee of the Central Council for Education, which focuses on salary systems and work style reforms for teachers, has proposed a draft to significantly increase the additional pay for teachers.

This pay, meant to compensate for overtime, is suggested to rise from the current 4% of monthly salary to at least 10%. This adjustment, the first of its kind in fifty years, maintains the existing system where overtime compensation does not correspond to actual hours worked.

As teacher shortages persist and work hours lengthen, the committee, under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, has been exploring these reforms since last June. On the 19th, they presented their proposal which addresses the payment structure set by the "Special Law on Salaries" (Kyutokuho) over fifty years ago. This law was initially based on an assumption of roughly 8 hours of overtime per month.

The proposed increase to 10% would, according to the Ministry's calculations, boost a 32-year-old teacher's monthly earnings from approximately 12,000 yen to about 30,000 yen on a base salary of 300,000 yen. To implement this change, an amendment to the Kyutokuho is required, potentially increasing public spending by 210 billion yen.

Despite the proposed pay raise, there remains criticism over the Kyutokuho framework itself, which does not calculate overtime based on actual hours worked. The draft defends this approach by highlighting the unique and spontaneous nature of teaching, which often involves creativity and cannot easily be confined within strict working hours.

Furthermore, the proposal introduces several enhancements to the teaching framework:

The establishment of an intermediary role between "teacher" and "senior teacher" offering higher pay.
Additional allowances for homeroom teachers and improvements in management allowances.
Expansion of the specialized subject teacher system from 5th and 6th grades to include 3rd and 4th grades.
Increased deployment of support staff to better assist teachers and manage student needs.

The committee aims to finalize its discussions by May, addressing both the urgent need for better compensation and the broader reform of work conditions in education.

Source: NHK

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