The government is considering obliging boards of education to draw up and publish programs aimed at reducing the overtime hours of public school teachers, it was learned Friday.
The education boards would be required to report on the current work hours of teachers, including overtime, and provide details of measures to improve their working styles, including numerical targets for reducing their overtime hours.
The boards will also be obliged to report progress in teachers' working style reforms at their meetings with the heads of local governments.
Furthermore, the so-called adjustment allowances for public school teachers, paid instead of overtime, would be raised to 10% of their base salaries in stages from the current 4% by the fiscal year beginning April 2030.
All these steps will be included in legislation to revise the special measures law on teachers' salaries that will be submitted to parliament in early February for implementation in April 2026.
The government aims to reduce the average monthly overtime of teachers to 30 hours over the five years through fiscal 2029, down from the current 47 hours.
It has already decided to raise the adjustment allowances to 5% in January 2026, the first hike since 1972.
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