Japan Considers Waiving Student Loans for Teachers to Combat Severe Shortages

To address a severe shortage of teachers in primary and secondary schools, the Japanese government is pursuing a plan to pay off the college student loans of teachers.

According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) is considering waiving the state-loaned "scholarships" that teachers received while attending university, applicable to those working in national, public, and private elementary, junior high, and high schools.

Japanese scholarships are divided into "grant-type scholarships" which students are not obligated to repay, and "loan-type scholarships" which must be repaid after employment. The plan aims to reduce or eliminate the repayment obligation for the loan-type scholarships held by teachers.

The government plans to exempt a certain amount or the full balance depending on the length of service, while future discussions will determine whether the policy will apply to current teachers or only newly hired ones.

Behind the Japanese government's push for this system are overlapping issues of a severe teacher shortage and a labor shortage across society as a whole.

According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, public elementary, junior high, high schools, and special-needs schools nationwide faced a shortage of about 4,300 teachers compared to the required number as of the start of the school year in April of last year.

This is because teachers hired in large numbers during the 1980s are reaching retirement age, alongside numerous vacancies caused by maternity or sick leave, and as a labor shortage spread across Japanese society, many students chose private companies over schools.

In addition, as heavy workloads and long hours diminished the appeal of the teaching profession, the recruitment competition rate for public school teachers plummeted from 13.3-to-1 in the early 2000s down to 2.9-to-1 for the 2025 recruitment cycle.

The Japanese government previously introduced a similar student loan waiver program for teachers in the 1950s to resolve a teacher shortage, yielding positive results.

That program was abolished in fiscal 1999 after equity issues with other professions were raised and teacher supply and demand stabilized.

Reported by Jung Da-eun | Video by Seo Byung-wook | Graphics by Yook Do-hyun | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.