A 62-year-old public elementary school teacher in Saitama sued for about 2.42 million yen in overtime pay. On October 1, 2021, the Saitama District Court dismissed the claim. The court said that teachers are expected to carry out their duties by their own independent judgment.
In an added remark, the court questioned the law that pays teachers a fixed allowance instead of overtime. It said the system may no longer fit the reality of schools.
On July 6, 1990, at Kobe Takatsuka High School, a public school in Hyōgo Prefecture, a male teacher closed the iron school gate at the 8:30 chime as part of lateness control. A first-year girl arriving at that moment was caught by the gate, which weighed about 230 kilograms. She died.
The teacher was dismissed. A court convicted him of professional negligence resulting in death and gave him a suspended sentence.
Under a law of 1971, teachers at Japanese public schools receive a teaching adjustment allowance, the kyōshoku chōseigaku, equal to 4 percent of their basic pay. They receive no overtime or holiday pay. The allowance is paid instead. Critics call the system teigaku hatarakase hōdai, all-you-can-work for a fixed price.
In 2025, the Diet passed an amendment. It raises the allowance by one point a year, to 10 percent by 2031. It is the first increase since the law took effect in 1972.
In a 1998 quarterfinal of the national high school baseball tournament at Kōshien, Yokohama beat PL Gakuen in 17 innings. Yokohama’s ace, Matsuzaka Daisuke, threw 250 pitches.
From the spring tournament of 2018, Kōshien introduced a tiebreak. From the 13th inning, each team began its turn at bat with runners on first and second base and no outs. The start of the tiebreak was later moved to the 10th inning.
Under Japan’s School Education Act, elementary school lasts six years and junior high school three. In compulsory education there is no tobikyū, skipping a grade, and no repeating a year. Children move up by age.
In 1998, Chiba University admitted the first tobi nyūgaku students in Japan under the current school system, students who entered university before finishing high school.
The Japanese government asks business organizations to follow one calendar for hiring university graduates. Company information activities start on March 1, just before the students’ final year. Selection starts on June 1 of the final year. Formal job offers, the naitei, are given from October 1 of that year.
At a Japanese driving school, the course is split into two stages. In the dai ichi dankai, the first stage, students take classroom and driving lessons. When all of them are done, students take the shūryō kentei, the completion test, and then a written test for the karimenkyo, the provisional license. The test has 50 questions, and 45 correct answers are needed to pass.
Only then does the dai ni dankai, the second stage, begin.
At many Japanese elementary schools, children walk to school in a group, shūdan tōkō. The city of Kumamoto explains that the group is usually led by a hanchō, a group leader in the fifth or sixth grade.
The city’s advice to families is to leave home early. A child who is late at the meeting place may be left behind.
In the public schools of the city of Minoh, near Osaka, school lunch, kyūshoku, is eaten in the classroom. The pupils on lunch duty carry the food in and serve it. When everything is ready, everyone sits down, and the meal begins with itadakimasu.
When they have finished, the pupils say gochisōsama deshita to give thanks, and then clear their dishes in turn.
Students of Nippon Sport Science University perform shūdan kōdō, group action, at the university’s physical education demonstration. Long lines of students march, turn and pass through one another’s lines. TV Tokyo explains that a diagonal crossing needs exact spacing, stride and timing, or the performers collide. In one show in Abashiri, reported by the Hokkaido Shimbun, 103 students took part.
Japanese Wikipedia credits Kiyohara Nobuhiko, a professor emeritus of the university, with researching and developing it. The students are volunteers and train three days a week for five months. According to TV Tokyo, the practice reportedly began in the university’s dormitories as a way to learn omoiyari, consideration for others.