International Journal of Research and Reviews in Education
ISSN: 2056-9726
Vol. 7(3), pp. 29-45, June 2021
doi.org/10.33500/ijrre.2021.7.004

Investigating and improving the schoolteacher recruiting system in Japan

Tatsuo Oyama¹* and Atsushi Inoue²

¹National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), 7-22-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-8677, Japan.
²Nippon Institute for Research Advancement, Yebisu Garden Place Tower, 34th Floor, 4-20-3 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-6034, Japan.

To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: oyamat@grips.ac.jp.

Received 14 April, 2021; Received in revised form 12 May, 2021; Accepted 17 May, 2021.

Abstract

Keywords:
Schoolteacher recruiting system, Mathematical model, Cluster analysis, Multivariate regression model.

At present, in Japan, the mass retirement of schoolteachers in most public schools requires mass recruitment, with the recent trend that the “competition rate” given by the ratio between the number of applicants and the number of employed schoolteachers has been declining. As a result, ensuring the quality of teachers in Japanese public schools is becoming difficult. We investigated the schoolteacher recruiting system (SRS) in Japan to find regional characteristics related to the numbers of students and schoolteachers in elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as the numbers of applicants and people accepted for the schoolteacher recruiting examination (SRE). Applying a cluster analysis technique, we classified 47 prefectures in Japan into four groups. Then, we applied a multivariate regression modeling approach to explain the number of applicants and the competition rate for those prefectures in each group using various economic and social variables. We aimed to improve the SRS in Japan by deriving facts through various mathematical modeling approaches. We believe it is necessary to increase the number of applicants for the SRE, with the goal of improving the SRS.