Parliament enacted a bill Wednesday to raise in stages what is called adjustment allowances for public school teachers to 10% of base salaries from the current 4%.
The revised special measures law on teachers’ salaries was approved by a majority vote in a plenary meeting of the House of Councilors, the upper chamber of parliament, after its passage through the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, last month.
Following the revision, the adjustment allowances, given instead of overtime pay, will be raised by 1 percentage point annually from next year until it reaches 10% in 2031.
The revision also requires all prefectural and municipal boards of education to draw up and publish plans to manage teachers’ workloads, in a bid to resolve the worsening problem of long working hours.
During Lower House deliberations. the bill, originally submitted by the government, was amended as agreed among ruling and opposition parties, namely the Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), Nippon Ishin no Kai and the Democratic Party for the People.
As part of the amendment, a target to cut teachers’ average monthly overtime by around 30% to 30 hours was added as a supplementary provision. The bill also seeks government support for teachers to deal with parents who make unreasonable demands.
During parliamentary debates, however, some lawmakers called for a more drastic change to the law, saying that the supplementary provision would not eliminate the cause of long working hours as teachers are not paid according to hours worked overtime.
The CDP, which jointly submitted the amended bill in the Lower House, argued for a further review of the law in deliberations at the Upper House education committee, saying, “This revision provides a path to a new revision.”
