Teacher Shortage: Who Will Support the Children?

Writer Profile

Aki Sakuma
Research Centers and Institutes Professor

Aki Sakuma
Research Centers and Institutes Professor

2025/02/25

"I am in despair that it is still only Thursday." This book begins with these words from a junior high school teacher.

Common sense would suggest that with the rapid decline in the birthrate, the demand for teachers should have plummeted. So why have schools fallen into such a severe teacher shortage?

To answer this question, this book clarifies the overall picture of what a teacher shortage actually is and how it has been brought about. The clues were found in original survey data conducted targeting a specific local government.

This survey revealed that the teacher shortage progressed through roughly four stages. Among the complex factors that caused the shortage, the primary factor is thought to be that local governments excessively restricted the hiring of full-time teachers in anticipation of the declining birthrate. Behind this was the national administrative and financial reforms that took place in the 2000s.

What on earth should be done? Ten years ago, the situation could have been addressed by increasing the number of teacher recruits, but we have now fallen into a vicious cycle where the number of applicants has decreased, making it impossible to simply increase hiring. Therefore, in this book, I offer my own policy recommendations and examine what will happen if the teacher shortage is left unaddressed, using the situation in the United States as a reference.

In the United States, even after relaxing teacher licensing requirements, the shortage has not improved, and an increasing number of states are putting military personnel and immigrants in the classroom. Children born in poor areas are unable to receive a proper education, cannot escape poverty for the rest of their lives, and social division deepens. The middle class struggles under the heavy burden of tuition fees to send their children to private schools, but those fees only continue to skyrocket. In other words, the teacher shortage is not merely an educational issue, but a problem that affects the very foundation of what Japanese society will become.

I receive congratulatory remarks saying, "This is a timely publication," but to be honest, my feelings are complicated. Ideally, the problem should have been solved much earlier, making the publication of this book unnecessary. However, it may not be too late. I would be grateful if as many people as possible would pick up this book and think together about the future of Japan.