TOKYO - Elementary and junior high school teachers in Japan still work the longest hours among their peers worldwide, according to an OECD report released on Tuesday. While the 2024 results by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development showed working hours had fallen by around four hours per week compared with the previous survey in 2018, Japan’s teachers still far exceeded their global counterparts.
The survey found that full-time elementary school teachers in Japan worked an average of 52.1 hours per week, while junior high school teachers logged 55.1 hours. By comparison, elementary school teachers worldwide averaged 40.4 hours per week, and middle school teachers 41 hours. Despite the long hours, Japanese teachers spent less time on actual teaching than the global average, with much of their time devoted instead to lesson preparation, administrative duties, and supervising extracurricular activities.
The 2024 Teaching and Learning International Survey, the fourth of its kind since being launched in 2008, gathered responses from 200 elementary and 200 middle schools in each of the 55 participating countries and regions.
The report also revealed deepening concerns over teacher shortages in Japan. When asked what resources were lacking in elementary schools, 40.7% of principals cited a shortage of teachers — more than double the 19.2% reported in the previous survey and well above the global average of 28.7%. Among junior high schools, 35.6% of principals pointed to staffing shortages, up from 27.5% in the prior survey and compared with the global average of 23.1%.
In contrast, relatively few Japanese schools reported deficiencies in information and communication technology (ICT) education, with only about 12% of elementary and junior high school principals citing this issue — far below the global average. However, Japan lagged sharply in the classroom adoption of artificial intelligence. Only 16% of elementary and 17.4% of junior high school teachers said they had used AI in their classes over the past year, compared with more than 36% globally. This placed Japan second-to-last among the countries surveyed, far behind leaders such as the United Arab Emirates and Singapore, where about 75% of teachers reported using AI in their teaching.
The OECD noted that Japanese educators remain cautious about integrating AI into classrooms, expressing concerns about potential bias reinforcement, data privacy, and the ethical implications of relying on automated tools in education. While efforts to reduce workloads have seen modest results, the findings underline the continuing strain faced by Japan’s teachers — a challenge that remains among the most pressing in the country’s education system.
Source: テレ東BIZ
