Call for Papers: Educational Studies in Japan Vol. 19. 2025
Where is the teacher shortage headed in Japan as a shrinking society?
Submission deadline: August 31, 2024
According to a UNESCO report, teacher shortages are a global policy issue. Following theUNESCO definition, 44 million teachers will be needed by 2030 to achieve Sustainable
Development Goal No. 4 “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong
learning opportunities for all.”
Although this special issue does recognize this global shortage of teachers, its focus is on theteacher shortage in Japan. Japan is a member of the developed world, but its birthrate is declining
and its population is aging, while the government debt keeps growing. Though Japan scores
exceptionally high in international assessments of academic ability for a country with a population of
more than 100 million and considerable north-to-south geographic size, indicators such as laborproductivity, women’s status, and IT activities are among the lowest in the world. By disseminating
findings from research on the Japanese teacher shortage while considering the country’sdemographics, this special issue intends to spark international discussion and contribute to solving
the global teacher shortage.
After a survey by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in 2018,teacher shortages were recognized as a policy issue in Japan; however, it was not until January 2022,
when more results were published, that they were highlighted as a serious policy issue.
Teachers in East Asia characteristically perform a wide range of tasks, including
extracurricular activities and paperwork, beyond classroom lessons, and Japanese teachers are noexception. Teachers’ busy schedules in Japan became a policy issue in the early 2010s, even before
the teacher-shortage issue. The Japanese education system has always been determined at theconstitutional level, with the central government paying teachers’ salaries in the compulsory
education sector, making it possible to hire the national minimum number of teachers independent of
the financial capacity of local governments.
The Japanese teacher shortage cannot be fully understood by observing the current education
sector alone. Teachers who joined the workforce around 1980, when the second baby boom
generation, which peaked in 1973, began entering elementary school, started to retire around 2020.
This demographic change in the teacher job market is one of the reasons behind the Japanese teachershortage.
Nonetheless, various sectors of Japan other than education are also facing labor shortages
owing to Japan’s declining birthrate and aging population. Several questions require attention, suchas “Is the teacher shortage more acute compared to those of other sectors?”, “Are teachers’ long

working hours exacerbating the teacher shortage?”, “What kind of measures should be implemented
in teacher training programs?” and more.
Thematic examples:
Historical context of the teacher shortage
International comparison of teacher shortages (with a focus on Japan)
Policy analysis of the teacher shortage
Measures to address the teacher shortage in teacher training (teacher socialization)
Teachers’ workload
Teachers’ mental health
Robot teachers