Machine translation ffollows link
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/a8d454c3fe931db776427e58df9f9b17974274ac

The dispute between the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the Ministry of Finance over improving the treatment of public school teachers has been resolved by agreeing to gradually increase salaries without conditions. MEXT plans to submit an amendment to the Special Measures Act on Teachers' Salaries (Kyutokuho) to the ordinary Diet session scheduled to convene on January 24.

The draft budget for fiscal 2025 includes an increase in the "teacher adjustment allowance," which is paid in lieu of overtime pay, from the current 4% of the base salary to 5%. If approved, this would mark the first increase since the law came into effect in 1972.

Background and Tensions Between Ministries

The adjustment allowance is based on the Kyutokuho, enacted in 1971, and its calculation stems from an average monthly overtime of about eight hours in fiscal 1966. However, this framework has not changed for over half a century.

In the budget formulation process, MEXT initially demanded a significant increase in the adjustment allowance to 13%. The Ministry of Finance, however, insisted on a gradual increase tied to progress in workstyle reforms and even proposed reforming the system to pay overtime in line with actual working hours. This led to intensifying negotiations between the two ministries.

MEXT's demands were based on the government's economic and fiscal policy guidelines ("Honebuto no Hoshin"), which reflected a recommendation by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to increase the adjustment allowance to over 10%. However, a senior official at MEXT noted that the weakening influence of education-affiliated lawmakers in the LDP, especially after the ruling party lost its majority in the Lower House election last October, impacted the budget discussions.

In the end, a compromise was reached: the Ministry of Finance agreed to MEXT's request to introduce a 35-student-per-class system in middle schools, allowing for a gradual, unconditional increase in the adjustment allowance. Starting in fiscal 2026, the maximum number of students per class in public middle schools will be reduced from the current 40 to 35, and the adjustment allowance will be raised to 10% by fiscal 2034.

Advances in Education Policy

While the 35-student-per-class system for elementary schools will be completed in fiscal 2025, middle schools have continued with the 40-student system. For MEXT, which has been seeking to alleviate the increasing workload of teachers as they face greater demands in responding to students, this represents a significant step forward.

Reviving the Appeal of the Teaching Profession

By improving teachers' working conditions, MEXT hopes to address the current teacher shortage and restore the appeal of the profession. During ministerial negotiations, the two ministries set a target of reducing overtime hours by 30% to around 30 hours per month over the next five years.

In the fiscal 2025 draft budget, ¥2.1 billion is allocated to raise the adjustment allowance from 4% to 5% (for the period January to March of fiscal 2026). Additional measures include a monthly ¥3,000 increase for teachers serving as homeroom instructors, completing the transition to 35-student classes for sixth graders in elementary schools, and expanding subject-specific teaching to fourth grade, which will increase the number of teaching staff by 5,827.

• (Article by Taisuke Kusugi)

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Uhh this is going to mean shifting school allocations in some cases. Where I teach, we are absolutely slammed in some schools (I think Saitama City's Uchiya JHS is still 11 classes in each grade year, so conceptually requiring as many as 13 homerooms to replace the 11.)

Small classes are always appreciated but 36 is such a better number for divisibility than 35; whatevs