Teacher Attrition from Mental Illness Hits a Record 1,319 — Will the Raise Reach the Root?
Japan's School Teacher Statistics Survey shows 1,319 public school teachers left over mental illness in FY2024, a record, up 369 from the prior survey. The state has amended the Kyutoku Law to raise the teaching allowance from 4% to 10% in stages, yet long hours are cited in only 0.5% of leave cases. Does adding money reach the root of why teachers fall ill? This reads the downward spiral of attrition and vacancy, and the question of symptom versus cause.
TL;DR
- In FY2024, 1,319 public elementary, junior high, and high school teachers left over mental illness, a record and up 369 from the prior survey
- The state amended the Kyutoku Law to raise the teaching allowance from 4% to 10% in stages, yet long hours are cited in just 0.5% of leave cases
- Attrition breeds vacancies and piles load on those who remain in a downward spiral, while the hiring ratio has fallen to a record-low 2.9
In FY2024 a record 1,319 public school teachers left over mental illness, and 7,087 took leave. Yet among the causes of leave that boards of education cite, long hours account for just 0.5%; teaching content, relationships, and clerical work lead. The state raises the teaching allowance from 4% to 10%, but that money is tied to working time and sits out of step with why teachers fall ill.
What Is Happening
Teachers leaving over mental illness hit a record 1,319. The state raises the teaching allowance 4% to 10%, but does money reach the root?
Teachers are leaving the classroom over mental illness at a record rate. By the School Teacher Statistics Survey of Japan's Ministry of Education (MEXT), 1,319 public elementary, junior high, and high school teachers left over mental illness in FY2024, up from 950 in the prior FY2021 survey, a rise of 369. The breakdown is 801 in elementary, 365 in junior high, and 153 in high school. About 8.5% of leavers, excluding retirement, left the classroom having fallen mentally ill. This is a mid-report figure; the final numbers are due in March 2027.
The state has moved on pay. In 2025 it amended the Kyutoku Law, which pays no overtime and instead adds a flat teaching allowance, to raise that allowance from 4% to 10% in stages. From January 2026 it rises one point a year, reaching 10% in 2031 — the first rise in the allowance since the law's enactment in 1971. But does adding money reach the root of why teachers fall mentally ill?
Background & Context
Mental-illness leave sits high at 7,087, yet long hours are cited in only 0.5% of cases, out of step with a reform aimed at working time
Teachers who fall ill are far more numerous just short of leaving. By MEXT's personnel-administration survey, 7,087 public school teachers took leave for mental illness in FY2024. And that number has shifted to a higher plane in recent years. It was about 5,000 in FY2015, but has held at 6,500 to 7,100 since FY2022. The record attrition sits at the end of that line of leave.
Here is a figure not to miss. Among the causes of leave that boards of education cite, "long working hours" accounts for just 0.5%. The top causes are teaching content at 26.5%, workplace relationships at 23.2%, and clerical work at 12.7%. What drives teachers to the wall is less the sheer length of hours than the layering of teaching, relationships, and paperwork. Yet this is the boards of education's own read, and it does not rule out long hours working indirectly, through the wear of relationships and the glut of paperwork. Even so, what the amendment moves head-on is a monetary measure tied to working time. There lies a gap.
Reading the Structure
Attrition breeds vacancies and piles load on those who remain, a downward spiral, as the hiring ratio hits a record-low 2.9
One fewer teacher pushes those who remain still harder. When someone takes leave or quits, another must carry the load. A principal doubles as a homeroom teacher; a vice-principal takes classes. The teacher on whom the load concentrates breaks down next, and another vacancy opens. This downward spiral is turning in place after place. And the pool to fill the holes is thin. In FY2025 the hiring-exam ratio fell to a record-low 2.9, and for elementary schools to 2.0. The lower the ratio, the harder the holes are to fill. Why teachers fall short, I examined through hiring ratios, the drying-up of temporary appointments, and the surge in special-needs classes in a separate column.
The Kyutoku Law, under the fiction of "not ordering" overtime, has paid no premium matched to actual overtime and processed it all through a flat allowance. That is why it is called "unlimited work at a fixed rate." Raising the allowance from 4% to 10% is a step toward rewarding the work. But unless the structure of working beyond the limit itself changes, money eases the pain while the cause of the pain remains. The amendment also requires each board of education to draw up a plan to manage workload and secure health, setting a goal of cutting overtime to about 30 hours a month on average by FY2029. Yet false records shorter than reality, and hitting the target by shifting work to be taken home, are forbidden. The same guideline also calls for redistributing work — moving clerical tasks like survey responses and grading to non-teachers — which overlaps with the clerical load cited as a cause of leave. Not a target met on paper, but the actual volume of teaching and paperwork cut. The substance of the amendment I also took up in a column on regional gaps.
Rewarding with money and changing how people work are separate tasks. Raising the teaching allowance steps into the first. But as long as the causes of falling ill lie in teaching, relationships, and paperwork, the line leaving the classroom will not stop until the second is reached. The record 1,319 is not a number that vanishes once the lag in pay is closed; it remains as homework on how to lighten the work itself.
Further Reading
- 聖職と労働のあいだ 「教員の働き方改革」への法理論 (Between Sacred Calling and Labor: A Legal Theory for Teachers' Work-Style Reform) (Satoshi Takahashi, Iwanami Shoten, 2022) — a legal-theory account of the structure and contradictions of the Kyutoku Law and the concept of "working time" the amendment puts in question. (In Japanese.)
References
School Teacher Statistics Survey (FY2025 Interim Report) — Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
Survey on the Personnel Administration of Public School Staff (FY2024) — Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
Outline of the Bill to Amend the Act on Special Measures concerning Salaries of Education Personnel — Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
Key Points of the Revised Guideline on Securing Education Personnel's Health — Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
Results of FY2025 Public School Teacher Hiring Examinations — Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
