TOKYO -- A record 7,119 teachers at public elementary, junior high, senior high and special needs schools across Japan took a leave of absence from work due to mental illnesses in the 2023 academic year, up 580 individuals from the previous school year, an education ministry survey has found.

Instructing students and workplace relationships were attributed to the primary causes of psychological and physical burdens on teachers, according to the survey on personnel administration status of public school teachers released by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology on Dec. 20. The survey for the first time added the causes of teachers' leave of absence to questionnaire items.

The ministry interviewed the education boards of the country's 47 prefectures and 20 ordinance-designated cities. The figure increased for three consecutive years. In addition, a record 0.77% of the country's 920,415 public school teachers had taken leave.

Regarding the causes for absence, 59 of the 67 education boards cited up to two reasons that were known to them. Among these factors, "work related to instructing students," with student guidance and classes in mind, formed the largest group at 26.5%, followed by "interpersonal relations at workplaces" at 23.6% and "administrative work such as the division of school duties and responding to surveys" at 13.2%. While "long working hours" accounted for a mere 0.8%, the education ministry speculates, "We believe there are circumstances where long work hours are induced by factors placing high in the rankings."

Looking at the number of years in service at schools where teachers worked when their leave of absence was ordered, "less than three years" accounted for 62.6% of the total. This suggests that teachers' health was affected by having been assigned to a position with certain responsibilities while not getting accustomed to the new environment following the transfers.

By gender, 2,866 of teachers taking leave due to mental illnesses were men, while women accounted for 4,253. Compared to a survey in the 2018 school year, these figures marked an increase of 1.2 times for men and 1.5 times for women. This is likely because burdens from child-rearing and providing nursing care to family members concentrate on women, making them distressed over balancing these household duties with their teaching professions.

In regard to the survey's findings that student guidance and classes were the top causes for teachers' leave of absence, an education ministry representative cited the current situation where there are rising numbers of diverse students such as truant children and foreign pupils, and commented, "There is an urgent need to increase the number of teachers and assign expert personnel, as well as enhance support staff, to prevent teachers from taking leave." In reference to personnel transfers every few years for teachers, the ministry official noted, "It may be preferable for teachers to be given options to continue working at schools and in communities they have got familiar with in some cases."

(Japanese original by Buntaro Saito, Tokyo City News Department)