EXCLUSIVE: Japan to Spend 1.5 T. Yen as Teachers’ Costs

December 15, 2018

Tokyo--Japan's education ministry plans to include 1.52 trillion yen in its budget for fiscal 2019 to cover personnel costs for teachers at public elementary and junior high schools, Jiji Press learned on Friday.

In an effort to promote teachers' work style reform, the ministry aims to secure sufficient instructors for English classes at elementary schools.

The sum for fiscal 2019, which starts next April, is down 2.7 billion yen from the previous year, reflecting a fall in the number of schoolchildren and a decline in salary costs due to an increasing number of younger teachers.

As part of teachers' work style reforms, the ministry will spend 13.5 billion yen to hire more outside staff at schools. It will boost the number of instructors supporting club activities by 4,500 to 9,000 and that of staff members helping teachers to prepare classes by 600 to 3,600.

The ministry's budget plan will also include 300 million yen in spending each on a model project in which high schools operate as the center of local revitalization programs and on an experimental research in which advanced technologies are incorporated into school education.

In a planned fiscal 2018 second supplementary budget, the ministry's spending is expected to total 266 billion yen, including 138.2 billion yen to promote innovative technologies. Jiji Press