by Alice Grodenker

Hinako Matsumura teaches constitutional law in Japan. Or at least she tries. Her employment conditions as a part-time university lecturer are so poor that it’s virtually impossible to do a proper job of it. Unable to secure a full-time position, Matsumura has cobbled together a career teaching part-time at six different universities scattered throughout the vast Tokyo metropolitan area. This means spending up to six hours a day commuting between jobs and home.

“I waste 21 hours a week on trains, which is time I would much rather spend with my students,” Matsumura lamented in a recent interview in Tokyo. But even if she could spend less time on trains and more time on campus, getting to know her students would be an uphill battle: she has up to 400 students in a class and nearly 1,000 students in total. With so many students, Matsumura has to cut corners to keep grading at a manageable level. That means exams have to be multiple-choice, and she can’t assign papers.

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