90 percent of the boards of education targeted by Yomiuri Shimbun are concerned with securing enough coaches and advisers from outside the faculty for extracurricular activities at public junior high schools.
The transition period runs through March 2026 and starts in April for extracurricular activities. Coaches and advisers from private sports organizations and community entities run junior high school clubs instead of faculty members on weekends and holidays during this time.
The idea is to have this outsourcing cover weekdays as well.
The online questionnaire was made available to the boards of education in all 47 prefectures and 20 ordinance-designated cities in February and March, with responses from every board.
The boards of education were allowed to choose multiple answers, as they were asked about the hurdles to securing coaches and advisers from outside the faculty. The central government introduced the reform with the aim of reducing burden on school teachers, who have overwork that is becoming routine, by ensuring the quality of human resources is chosen by 55 boards 82% and setting up and funding the compensation for coaches and advisers picked by 45 boards 67%.
There are about 9,000 public junior high schools in the nation, so there are about 100,000 sports teams from baseball to track. Extracurricular clubs, such as the brass band and chorus, are also subject to the reform. The results of the questionnaire show the lack of coaches and advisers in these diverse fields facing the boards of education.
The reform is high as faculty members who had been coaches and advisers at no extra charge need to be replaced, according to Ryo Uchida, a professor at Nagoya University who is an expert on the reform of extracurricular activities.
There is also the issue of corporal punishment by some coaches and advisers, Uchida said.