The Status Quo, Governance, and Insights of the Burden on Japanese Primary and Secondary School Teachers

Japanese primary and secondary school teachers have long struggled with excessive workloads, extended long working hours, chronic psychological stress, unsustainable job demands and systemic instability in school environments. In response, the Japanese government has implemented a multifaceted reform strategy targeting four core areas: clarifying teaching responsibilities to prevent role overload, strictly regulating working hours to address overtime culture, developing collaborative team-teaching models to distribute workloads, and cultivating supportive workplace conditions to improve teacher well-being. Looking ahead, reforms to reduce teachers' workloads in Japan will focus on rationalizing school operations and teaching practices, significantly reducing working hours, advancing the "Team School" initiative, and enhancing welfare protections for educators. These measures offer valuable lessons for the education system back in China: emphasizing the need for comprehensive policy frameworks to redefine teaching roles, fostering school-community partnerships in workload ma-nagement, and establishing robust support systems that empower teachers while regularly evaluating implementation effectiveness through structured feedback mechanisms.