Look around you in the office at the Board of Education or your teachers’ office. If half the people quit their jobs every three years, how well do you think the education system would work? In Osaka-Fu, most good native English teachers leave their jobs. Every three years, on average, 60% quit. Why?
There are many reasons, but the basic reason comes down to two points: job security and money. The contracts Osaka-Fu offers are only for part-time work with part-time benefits. The contract is only for one year. Married native English teachers with families are insecure. How comfortable would you feel if you had to look for a new job every March?
Osaka-Fu has one of the biggest native English teacher programs in Japan. Osaka-Fu employs more part-time English teachers in an organized program than any school district in Asia. Yet the English level of Japanese students is terribly low. What can be done? The answer is surprisingly easy: GIVE GOOD TEACHERS MORE RESPONSIBILITY FOR MORE PAY.
Osaka-Fu can be a leader in English education. Based on my experience as a native English teacher for the last nine years in an Osaka-Fu high school, I propose the following:
1. Raise the pay scale. Paying teachers with many years of teaching experience, the same wage year after year, will not motivate them to stay. If there is not enough money to keep good teachers in the current system, then hire fewer teachers but make sure they are excellent.
2. Offer multi-year contracts. The current one year contract offers insecurity not security.
3. Start with a small group of 15 full-time well-paid native English teachers. Give these teachers the responsibility to work together to generate better ways of improving English education for Osaka-Fu. Hire these teachers on a five year contract.
4. If the ideas are adopted and demonstrate a reliable improvement in English acquisition, then expand the program to include more teachers.
If these four steps are followed, I predict that the results will be amazing: students will actually graduate high school with proficient English language ability. If it doesn’t work, after five years, go back to the old system, none the worse for wear.
Sincerely,
Steven Thompson
General Secretary
Currently, NET teachers are employed only part time. We are able to contribute less to the educations of our students than we would like. We do not participate in curriculum development, cannot go on school trips and rarely have any opportunity to develop lasting school programs. Without responsibility, the ideas of part-time NETs are too easily dismissed by the Japanese teachers teaching English. It doesn't have to be this way. Hire full time Native English Teachers.