COVID-19感染症の拡大は、多くの国で学校の閉鎖と子どもの学習のオンライン化をもたらした。本研究課題の当初から取り組んでいた３つの研究研究テーマのうち、２つは昨年度までに終了した。本年度は最後の１つを国際学会で発表、査読付き専門誌での出版を目指した。この論文では、国の学校の情報化調査と教員の働き方調査を小中学校の教育委員会単位でマッチしたデータを利用して、教員のICTスキルが、コロナ禍の学校閉鎖期間中のリモート教育の実施や、その前後の教員の残業に与えた効果を因果的に分析した。その結果、教員のスキルはリモート教育の実施にはほとんど影響しないが、残業を減らす効果がある傾向、そして、ICT機材の充実こそがむしろリモート教育実施にプラスの効果があることがわかった。この論文は、公教育におけるオンライン教育実施で国際的に大きな遅れをとっている我が国において、教育現場にとっての、何がオンライン教育普及の隘路になっているかを、全国のデータで厳密に示した点で、画期的と考えている。この論文は、プラハで開催された、欧州最大の労働経済学の国際学会で発表する機会を得て、とても好意的に受け止められ、同時に多くのフィードバックを得ることができた。その後、教育経済学の専門雑誌に投稿し、査読を経て、本年３月中旬に条件付き採択に至っている。
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced schools around the world to close, and Japanese schools struggled to switch to online education. As two of the three research themes initially addressed were completed by the previous year, the aim of this year was to present the final theme at an international conference and publish it in a peer-reviewed journal. This paper uses matched data from govermental nationwide survey data on the digitization of schools at the national level and on teachers' working conditions at the municipal level of elementary and junior high schools. It causally analyzes the effects of teachers' ICT skills on the implementation of remote education during the school closure period of the COVID-19 pandemic and on teachers' overtime before and after this period. The results show that teachers' skills have little impact on the implementation of remote education but tend to reduce overtime. Furthermore, it was found that the provision of ICT equipment has a positive effect on the implementation of remote education. We consider his paper pathbreaking as it rigorously demonstrates, using nationwide data, the obstacles to the widespread adoption of online education in public school system in Japan, which is significantly behind on an international scale. This paper was well received at the largest international conference on labor economics in Europe held in Prague, where it received a lot of positive feedback. Subsequently, it was submitted to a journal in educational economics, underwent peer review, and was conditionally accepted in March this year.