TOKYO: An advisory panel to the Japanese education minister on Monday proposed raising allowances for public school teachers that are paid instead of overtime pay, for the first time in about five decades.

A subcommittee of the Central Council for Education called for raising the allowances to 10 percent of the monthly salary or higher from 4 percent at present, as part of efforts to secure public school teachers.

The education ministry plans to submit a bill to raise the allowances to parliament early next year.

If the figure is raised to 10 percent , it will cost the Japanese and local governments some 210 billion yen more in total annually.

The subcommittee also proposed raising allowances for teachers with heavy workloads, principals and vice principals to build a payroll system according to teachers’ duties and working conditions.

Public elementary and junior high school teachers are estimated to have worked some 41 hours and some 58 hours overtime per month, respectively. The subcommittee proposed reducing monthly overtime to within 45 hours first and to around 20 hours eventually.

JIJI Press