Despite old Andrew's trials and tribulations teaching English at seven junior high schools in Japan between 1990-1993 in Ohtawara-shi (Ohtawara City), Tochigi-ken (Tochigi Prefecture), Japan, he never noticed a great shift in the Japanese teachers coming and going from one year to the next.
Sure there were retirements, maternity leaves et al, but teachers sucked it up and seemed to be at their particular school for life.
But nowadays, Japan's fame as a country where a person has a job for life is going out the window--especially in the field of education.
According to a survey conducted by the Japan Ministry of Education, the number of first-year teachers who left their job for health reasons has increased twenty-fold over the past 10 years, citing more often than not emotional issues.
A total of 25,743 Japanese public school teachers who began working in fiscal 2010 were polled, with 101 voluntarily leaving the job within a year for "health" reasons, mainly depression and stress, compared with five in fiscal 2000.
Holy pandemic, Batman!
Apparently some 91 of the 101 teachers who quit in 2010 said they were suffering emotional issues such as depression.
"We believe they suffered from a gap between reality and what they imagined before they start working... Some were believed to have trouble dealing with difficult parents. Some may have suffered from human relationships at their workplaces," says education ministry official Izumino Masashi (surname first) to the The Japan Times on November 9, 2011.
Beginning in 2009, the Education Ministry began investigating the mental health of teachers who quit within a year. In the first survey, 83 of 86 who quit did so because psychological issues.
Of the 91 teachers who quit for psychological issues in 2010, 29 came from Tokyo--the highest--while Chiba-ken (Chiba Prefecture) and Aichi-ken (Aichi Prefecture) were the next highest with six and five respectively.
With a great void in qualified teachers,Tokyo's metropolitan government began in 2010 to recruit retired teachers to help the first-year teachers at the elementary school levels.
Stress has been an issue not only among new teachers but the older guard as well.
In 2009, some 8,627 teachers took a leave of absence for health reasons, with 63.3 per cent (5,458) of them doing so for psychological reasons.
Compare this: only 0.24 teachers in total took a leave of absence in 2000, while the number increased to 0.60 in 2009.
The Japan Ministry of Education lays the blame at the so-called monster parents, who make unreasonable demands, and an increasingly digitized society as some of the reasons behind teachers' increasing stress.
"There are multiple reasons behind (the rise)... One difficulty is guiding students in the digitized world. The Internet is becoming a place where bullying takes place, and (today's) children communicate more through email... To avoid falling behind the children, teachers have been attempting to learn IT technology. But for some, it is very difficult," says Izumino.
However, while pointing a finger at the first-year teachers for not being able to handle the rigors of teaching, the 2009 survey noted that 74.1 percent of all teachers who took a leave of absence due to mental illness were over 40-years-old.
Files by Andrew Joseph
Sure there were retirements, maternity leaves et al, but teachers sucked it up and seemed to be at their particular school for life.
But nowadays, Japan's fame as a country where a person has a job for life is going out the window--especially in the field of education.
According to a survey conducted by the Japan Ministry of Education, the number of first-year teachers who left their job for health reasons has increased twenty-fold over the past 10 years, citing more often than not emotional issues.
A total of 25,743 Japanese public school teachers who began working in fiscal 2010 were polled, with 101 voluntarily leaving the job within a year for "health" reasons, mainly depression and stress, compared with five in fiscal 2000.
Holy pandemic, Batman!
Apparently some 91 of the 101 teachers who quit in 2010 said they were suffering emotional issues such as depression.
"We believe they suffered from a gap between reality and what they imagined before they start working... Some were believed to have trouble dealing with difficult parents. Some may have suffered from human relationships at their workplaces," says education ministry official Izumino Masashi (surname first) to the The Japan Times on November 9, 2011.
Beginning in 2009, the Education Ministry began investigating the mental health of teachers who quit within a year. In the first survey, 83 of 86 who quit did so because psychological issues.
Of the 91 teachers who quit for psychological issues in 2010, 29 came from Tokyo--the highest--while Chiba-ken (Chiba Prefecture) and Aichi-ken (Aichi Prefecture) were the next highest with six and five respectively.
With a great void in qualified teachers,Tokyo's metropolitan government began in 2010 to recruit retired teachers to help the first-year teachers at the elementary school levels.
Stress has been an issue not only among new teachers but the older guard as well.
In 2009, some 8,627 teachers took a leave of absence for health reasons, with 63.3 per cent (5,458) of them doing so for psychological reasons.
Compare this: only 0.24 teachers in total took a leave of absence in 2000, while the number increased to 0.60 in 2009.
The Japan Ministry of Education lays the blame at the so-called monster parents, who make unreasonable demands, and an increasingly digitized society as some of the reasons behind teachers' increasing stress.
"There are multiple reasons behind (the rise)... One difficulty is guiding students in the digitized world. The Internet is becoming a place where bullying takes place, and (today's) children communicate more through email... To avoid falling behind the children, teachers have been attempting to learn IT technology. But for some, it is very difficult," says Izumino.
However, while pointing a finger at the first-year teachers for not being able to handle the rigors of teaching, the 2009 survey noted that 74.1 percent of all teachers who took a leave of absence due to mental illness were over 40-years-old.
Files by Andrew Joseph
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