Newly appointed teachers at public schools are quitting in droves due to burnout caused by long working hours and a lack of support.

The situation is so acute that the education ministry recently started providing grants for counseling for teachers worried about their mental health.

In Tokyo, where the largest number of teachers are employed across Japan, 2,429 new regular teachers were employed at public elementary, junior high or high schools, or special support schools, in fiscal 2022.

Of that number, 108 had resigned by March, meaning they had stayed in their jobs for less than a year. The figure represents 4.4 percent of all new teachers employed in fiscal 2022, the highest number in a decade.

Around 40 percent of the 108 teachers cited mental exhaustion as their reason for quitting, according to the capital’s board of education.

CAREER CHANGE

“Many resign ‘to change direction’ (in their lives) by getting another job, for example,” said a board official. “Teaching students and dealing with their parents involve a lot of hard work, after all.”

The official noted that some teachers prefer to keep their problems to themselves because it’s difficult to talk about their issues with colleagues who are in the same boat when it comes to dealing with stress levels.

Around 1,270 public elementary schools in Tokyo reported a shortfall of around 80 teachers this past spring.

Part of the reason for the shortage was the exodus of new teachers.

Some schools are unable to find substitute teachers quickly, so their vice principals act as homeroom teachers temporarily while performing their managerial duties.

This has led to concerns that the quality of learning at schools is gradually deteriorating.

In Mie Prefecture, eight new teachers, or 1.6 percent of all new hires, quit in fiscal 2022. The number was the largest in the past 10 years.

All except one who was dismissed on disciplinary grounds resigned because of mental illness.

“More teachers resigned due to mental illness issues compared to past cases,” said the board official.

In Tochigi Prefecture and Hiroshima city, the largest number of new teachers in a decade called it a day in fiscal 2022--12 and eight, respectively.

A nationwide survey by the education ministry found that an increasing number of new teachers bowed out within one year of being hired.

In fiscal 2021, a total of 539 teachers nationwide quit within one year of being employed, according to the ministry. The figure represented 1.61 percent of all new teachers hired that fiscal year.

A total of 197 left due to mental illness, the largest since fiscal 2009, when such data was first gathered.

In addition, 287 cited “personal reasons” for quitting.

The number of new teachers who quit due to mental illness almost doubled from a previous survey in fiscal 2018, when the figure was 104.

In contrast, 12 fewer teachers resigned due to personal reasons in fiscal 2021 compared to fiscal 2018.

No survey was carried out in fiscal 2019 and 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The nationwide figure for fiscal 2022 is still unknown as some prefectures and municipalities haven’t collected data.

The ministry will gather data from prefectures and municipalities in the coming months and publish the nationwide figure for fiscal 2022 at the end of this year if feasible.

The education ministry said it did not know the reason for the increase in new teacher resignations but admitted that more young teachers suffer from mental illness.

FEWER VETERANS TO GIVE ADVICE

“The work that teachers do has become more complicated and difficult as they are required to deal with a growing number of students who refuse to come to school, for example,” the ministry official said. “In addition, more young teachers have replaced veterans in recent years, who are many in number and have been retiring. It could be that support for such young teachers is inadequate.”

This fiscal year, the ministry started providing grants to prefectures and municipalities that provide support for teachers’ mental health, by putting in place arrangements where all teachers, including young ones, can receive consultations, for example.

(This article was written by Yuka Honda and Yoshika Uematsu.)