（3）Working Conditions of Teachers

Though various measures have been adopted to improve the working conditions of teachers, only two will be mentioned here - those relating to salaries and to public service status. A revision of the Law concerning Salaries of Personnel in the Regular Government Service, which was promulgated on August18, 1953, and put in force on January 1, 1954, differentiated the salary system of teachers from that of other public servants. Instead, the system was divided according to the so-called tri-pod system whereby the payees were grouped into categories of1) elementary and lower secondary school teachers, 2) upper secondary school teachers, and 3) university teachers. Amounts that had previously been paid as payees adjustments were incorporated into the regular salaries. In 1957 this system was reclassified into a system based on pay scales.

A second measure related to salaries concerns payment for overtime work. According to an administrative guideline, overtime service can not be required of teachers except in special cases. However, since the definition of what constitutes overtime work on the part of teachers of local public schools can be variously interpreted under the Labor Standards Law, the Ministry of Education undertook a study of the actual working conditions of teachers. Based on these findings, the Ministry introduced a bill into the Diet in 1968 to authorize the payment of special allowances for educational personnel in lieu of overtime pay, but the legislation was rejected. In 1971 the Ministry submitted and secured the approval of the Diet for a second bill, based this time on the suggestion of the National Personnel Authority that payees adjustments be allowed in the case of teachers because of the particular nature and requirements of their service. In effect this argument sidestepped the long-pending question of overtime. As of January, 1972, therefore, payment exclusively to educational personnel of a special adjustment amount, similar in nature to regular salaries, has improved the working conditions of teachers.

With regard to the public service status of teachers, two incidents involving "biased education" - the Yamaguchi Diary Affair of 1953 and the Kyoto Asahigaoka Affair of 1954 - prompted the passage through the Diet in May, 1954, of what have come to be known as the "Two Educational Laws." One, the Law concerning Provisional Measures for Securing Political Neutrality of Education in Compulsory Schools, was enacted for the purpose of safeguarding the independence of teachers by protecting them from the unfair domination of partisan influence. The second, a revision of the Law concerning Special Regulations for Educational Public Service Personnel, placed the same restrictions on the political activity of educational public service employees within local public schools as those in effect for teachers at national schools. Both these laws were promulgated on June 3, 1954, and put in force on June 13 of that year.