Noriko SUMIMURA
Researcher, Institute for Service Innovation Studies<Abstract> This paper is going to describe the status and deployment of teachers/teaching staff
who can use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as of 2016. Currently, the teaching
staff situation can be divided into two groups, which are teachers who use computers in class andthose who do not. This disparity exists even among teachers who are in charge of the same gradelevel. In other words, even in the same grade level, there are differences in class teacher
competency. This creates a difference between classes that use computers and classes that do not.
It is unfair for children to have different knowledge obtained from different teachers. This reportexamines the status and issues of ICT use in elementary level education to find out why there aredifferences in ICT use among teaching staff.
<Keywords> elementary education, ICT education, education gap, school education

Among other countries, many teachers inJapan are not confident in their ability to use
computers in the classroom. Many teachers areconcerned about achieving perfection that they
worry about what will happen if they fail.
Many teachers in their 20s and 30s have beenusing computers on a daily basis since theirstudent days, but many teachers over the ageof 40 remarked that they have never learned
how to use a computer, not even the basics.
This is because many teachers who workoutside of Japan have never learned how touse a computer. We wondered if there weresimilarities between teachers outside andinside of Japan.

There was a Survey conducted by OECD(TALIS) consisting of 34 Countries in 2013."
regarding work hours, that point out Japaneseteachers often work 7-8 hours per day. Inaddition to teaching, many teachers spend
time preparing school documents andresponding to parents, and many work morethan 8 hours a day. The table also shows thatteachers have low confidence in their own
ability to draw out active learning, and thatthe percentage of teachers who implement theuse of ICT and other methods are low. In theQuestionnaire
surveyconducted
withelementary and junior high school teachers,
many said that they were not able to conduct
ICT-enhanced classes because they lacked theconfidence to do so on their own.

For example, if one class in the same grade inan elementary school has a class that makes
use of computers and the other class does not,We can say that an educational disparity hasoccurred. Opportunities for learning should betreated equally, but they have become moreunequal. Japan's Ministry of Education,Culture, Sports, Science and Technology(MEXT) implemented a four-year plan toimprove
theenvironmentfor
thecomputerization of education, spending about
671.2 billion yen over the four years from 2014
to 2017. According to the Ministry of Education,
Culture, Sports, Science and Technology(MEXT) (2014) "Roundtable Meeting on thePromotion of ICT-based Education" report,
only 30% of all local governments have plans
for the development of ICT educational
environments, and according to the "Guide forPromoting ICT Environment Development in
Schools for Local Governments" issued by theMEXT (2017), There is such a wide spread that
the LAN development rate ranges from 0 to
100%, and the disparities and temperature
differences among local governments areextremely large.
We hypothesize that the ICT in education has
not progressed as planned over the past fouryears. The purpose of this study was to verify
the current status and issues of ICT utilizationby actually entering school sites as ICT
support staff and checking the actual status ofICT utilization in the classroom.

Interviews were conducted with 32 teachers
from 21 elementary and secondary schools.
The time frame was conducted in person
between June and November 2019.

Survey population: 32 elementary and juniorhigh school teachers from across Japan
Survey date: June to November 2019
Survey method: Interviews
Number of schools visited: 21With ICT support staff: 6 schools
Name of prefecture of employment: Osaka,Aichi, Hyogo, Okinawa, Tottori
The survey was conducted on generalteachers, vice principals, principals, andteachers in charge of information.

We asked the respondents whether they had
an ICT support staff or not, and noted theiropinions on ICT education, ICT support, andICT support staff, then analyzed them byutilizing KH-Coder, a software program that
performs quantitative analysis of text-type
data.
The total number of extracted words talled
up to 1,845, which were in 101 sentences and31 paragraphs. The words that appeared mostfrequently were ICT (57), support (41), teacher(21), being (14), person (13), and need (11)().
Extracted words from interviews forteachers

extracted word
ICT
supportteachers
I'm here (I'm here,I need you)personnecessaryconjugation
schoolbe saveduse

number ofoccurances
57
41
21
14
13
11
10
998

When the KWIC concordance checked thesentences containing the top frequent words, itsaid, "I feel that many people and information
about ICT education and teachers are needed.
Considering the lack of help from teachers in
the field, older people, and people who do nothave much knowledge, it would be very muchappreciated if there were people who could
teach us how to use ICT appropriately andprovide information. In addition, ICT will be
more important for both teachers and students
in the future, so I think we need more
opportunities to learn and more people toteach us."
"I think ICT support staff are necessary.
Teachers have an image that it is difficult touse ICT, so they are not positive about it anddo not have time to study. I would like to see
support for teachers as well as for students.""I would like ICT support staff to be assignedby all means. ICT environment has changed a
lot in recent years, and the speed of change isfast.""I feel that a lot of people and information areneeded regarding ICT education and teachers.
Considering the lack of help from teachers in
the field, the elderly, and those with little
knowledge, it would be very helpful if there
were people who can teach us how to use ICT
properly and give us information."
In addition, "ICT will be more important for
both teachers and students in the future, so I
think we need more opportunities to learn andmore people to teach us." I think we need more
opportunities to learn and need more people toteach us.
Sumimura et al. (2019) examined the statusof ICT support staff duties and the differencesin the support duties sought by teachers. They
reveal the reality that for teachers inelementary and junior high schools, they needassistance in conducting classes and school
duties, and they strongly desire theassignment of ICT support staff. As can beseen from the results of the interviews above,
only 6 out of 21 schools have an ICT support
staff. Regardless of whether there is a current
ICT support person or not, all schools want
ICT support. Currently however, only a few
schools are working on introducing a support
person, indicating that ICT support isnecessary and that they want someone who
supports in the field of ICT. In addition, it s
clear that many teachers in the educational
field are too busy with their own work to spend
time studying how to use ICT, and lack theknowledge and confidence in using it.

An extracted word cluster analysis wasconducted. The unit of aggregation was aparagraph, the method of cluster analysis was

the Ward method, and the minimum numberof occurrences was set to 5 with a high drop-off
range in reference to the level of annexation.
Figure 1 shows the results from thecorrespondence analysis of the extracted
words.

International faculty guidance environmental survey by OECD
We can see the KWIC concordance andconsider from the notated sentences, with agroup of people who are familiar with PCs andwho provide support and advice to the faculty,
Although the results differ from school toschool, they are closely related to the second
group of teachers who are busy and need ICT
support staff with specialized knowledge toassist them with ICT support and teaching(Figure 3 shows the correspondence analysisof the extracted words (scatter diagram), andthe classification is clarified by the bubble
notation as shown in Figure 2. Among them,
the words "teacher," "need," and "support" aresuperimposed on the word "ICT".
The KWIC concordance confirms that As an
ICT support person, I would appreciate it if
you could provide regular support to help
teachers learn to use ICT easily in theclassroom.""ICT support staff are very helpful because
they are able to respond immediately to any
problems we have. I really need them. ""ICT support staff are necessary. We need ICT

TALIS

support staff. We need consultation on whereto use ICT and how to use it. We need supportin preparing and operating content and tools."
As mentioned above, there are opinions that
ICT support staff is necessary and that theyshould be available for class support andconsultation.
On the other hand, "We have ICT support
staff, but we don't need people who only dowhat they are told. It takes a lot of time andeffort to tell them what to do. We wantsomeone who understands the position of theteachers and their movements, and who will dothings on their own.""ICT support staff should be experienced andable to give advice. Someone at the level of asupervisor is good. If you have someone who is
only there for six months or one year, or
someone with a low level, it's useless if it's not
ongoing. Some said that ICT support staff
should also have the knowledge of educationand communication skills.

Extracted words Correspondence analysis table

Extracted words Correspondence analysis (scatter plots)

It was found that ICT support personnel arenecessary in schools, and that all the teachers
strongly desired to have someone supporting
them, given their heavy workloads, limited
knowledge of ICT use in the classroom, anddifficulty in finding time to study. Although theMinistry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology (MEXT) has instructedthat one ICT support staff member should be
assigned to every four schools, the current
situation is that some schools have notassigned even one ICT support staff member.
ICT support staff schools only once a week or afew times a month. Despite this, it was clearthat the skills of the ICT support staff required
to be highly skilled. Lead managers who cangive advice on how to use ICT in the classroom,communication skills are desirable. Not only
are ICT support personnel needed in thefuture, but we also need to improve theawareness of each municipality to increase thenumber of required personnel. Improving thetreatment of ICT support personnel is achallenge for the future.

Sumimura, Noriko and Yuichi Fujimura (2019)
Research on the Difference between theCurrent Situation of Support Works by
ICT Supporters and Support Works
Requested by Teachers Research report ofJSET Conferences 19 (3), 143-150,
2019-07-27
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology (2016), "OECDInternational Teachers' Teaching
Environment Survey (TALIS) 2013 Survey
Results.",
http://www.mext.go.jp/component/b_menu/
other/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2014/06/30/1349
189_1.pdf