Many public school teachers pay out of pocket for work-related costs

Some teachers are paying out of their own pocket to prepare teaching materials and other supplies that are supposed to be covered by the schools’ budgets, researchers looking at the issue have found.

According to a nationwide survey conducted by the researchers, more than 70% of teachers working for public elementary and junior high schools said they experienced covering such expenses themselves in fiscal 2022.

There are also teachers in Hiroshima Prefecture who said they had no choice but to make out-of-pocket payments.

The researchers say government funding allocated to public schools is limited, and teachers have to go through cumbersome procedures to use public funds, prompting some to pay the bills themselves.

The survey was conducted by Shoko Fukushima, an associate professor of pedagogy at the Chiba Institute of Technology’s Faculty of Engineering, and two others in August 2023. They received responses from 1,034 public elementary and junior high school teachers across the country.

According to Fukushima’s book “Kyoshi no Jibara” (“Out-of-pocket payments by teachers”) written on the issue, the survey found that 75.8% of the respondents experienced covering work-related expenses themselves in fiscal 2022. Nonregular teachers at elementary schools marked the highest rate at 88.5%, followed by nonregular junior high school teachers at 83.2%.

Payments for expenses related to classes occupied 58.8% of the cases, the highest rate, followed by 37.1% for travel expenses such as visits to students’ homes and other schools. Although lower by percentage, there were cases of teachers paying for things related to extracurricular activities or compensating for accidental school property damage by students.

Interviews with teachers working in the city of Hiroshima revealed that in many cases, they made the payments reluctantly.

A 60-year-old elementary school teacher said they often buy items at ¥100 shops such as wet wipes, which are used to clean up spills during school lunches, and face masks to give to children who have to wear one when they are on school lunch duty but forgot to bring one.

Last year, the teacher spent some ¥5,000 ($33) on math and kanji character workbooks for students.

“I didn’t have time to go through the proper procedure to claim them as expenses,” the teacher said.

According to the city’s board of education, each school comes up with an annual plan in the previous year regarding how to spend school funds in the coming year.

The situation differs according to each school, but usually, when cases come up in the middle of the year in which teachers need to buy something not previously planned, they have to consult with their school's principal, check the item in catalogues or at stores and then ask clerical staff to create a purchase order form that includes how many items they need.

Then, they have to go to a school-designated supplier, receive the product in exchange for the form and ask the principal or the vice principal to check it. Teachers are apparently reluctant to go through such a laborious procedure.

A junior high school teacher in their 50s said they purchased a black referee uniform, which cost more than ¥20,000, when they were in charge of the school’s soccer club.

“No one forced me to buy it, but I was kindly advised on what kind of an outfit I should get,” the teacher said. “I wasn’t sure if I could claim the expense, so I just paid for it on my own.”

On the other hand, there are teachers who willingly pay for things out of their own pocket.

A 32-year-old elementary school teacher binds together all the classroom newsletters issued throughout the year and hands them out to students every year to keep as a souvenir.

The teacher pays around ¥3,000 for the process, such as putting on the front cover.

“This is a voluntary activity, so I see no reason not to pay for it myself,” the teacher said. “I find it rewarding when children tell me they are reading them over again.”

In the survey, teachers were also asked whether they should pay out of pocket for school-related things at their own discretion.

Among the respondents, 21.2% said they more or less agree with the idea of teachers having discretion, while 78.8% said the practice of teachers making out-of-pocket payments should be abolished.

“If teachers pay out of their own pockets, issues such as schools having insufficient budgets will not come to light,” Fukushima said.

“The situation must be changed so that teachers can do things they want to at work without having to cover the expenses, themselves.”