TOKYO: The education ministry has compiled guidelines to help schools prevent or deal with instances of teachers being subjected to verbal abuse, unreasonable demands and other forms of harassment by students’ parents or guardians.
The guidelines, which will soon be provided to boards of education and other entities nationwide, provide examples of how schools should handle such situations.
These include recording interactions with parents who repeatedly and persistently make demands of teachers, and having multiple teachers deal with overbearing parents.
The revised comprehensive promotion of labour measures law, which will take effect from October, mandates customer harassment prevention measures for companies and other entities.
Under the amended law, boards of education and incorporated educational institutions also will be obligated to take steps to prevent such harassment against teachers.
The guidelines drawn up by the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry clarify schools’ responsibilities and criteria for judging the behaviour of parents under the law.
The guidelines state that parents and residents are partners who support the growth and development of students, and that a school must seriously address any opinions, requests and inquiries directed to it.
Nevertheless, to protect the children and teachers, the guidelines state that schools must take a firm stand against any behaviour that “goes beyond what is socially acceptable”.
Examples of unacceptable behaviour include unreasonably demanding a child be put in another class or get a different homeroom teacher; demanding teachers supervise children playing at a park; staying on the school premises for a long time; and frequently making long phone calls to the school.
According to the guidelines, a school’s response to these situations should include steps such as “not making a teacher deal with such behaviour alone, whenever possible”.
If a parent continues to make demands over and over, the school is advised to “hang up the phone or ask the parent to leave the room after a certain period of time has elapsed”.
The guidelines also specified that interactions with parents be recorded — after informing parents in advance — to preserve objective evidence and then consulting with lawyers about further steps.
In the 2025 academic year, the ministry surveyed 11 local governments across Japan about harassment aimed at schools.
About 40 per cent of the 563 schools that responded to the survey said they had received “excessive complaints and unfair demands,” and more than 90 per cent of teachers that addressed these cases said they felt “dealing with parents was burdensome”.
In February, the Tokyo metropolitan government’s Board of Education compiled its own guidelines stipulating how teachers and school administrators should deal with overbearing parents.
The Tenri city government in Nara Prefecture set up a section dedicated to dealing with parents, and its staffers visit schools to directly handle cases of harassment.
The use of “school lawyers” to deal with cases of excessive demands issued by parents also is increasing. - The Japan News/ANN
