Government tries to abolish additional benefits for households on welfare assistance in exchange for free tuition

Japan Press Weekly

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Government tries to abolish additional benefits for households on welfare assistance in exchange for free tuition

The government is considering abolishing additional benefits for households with high school children that are on welfare assistance in exchange for making high schools tuition free.

Education Minister Nagatsuma Akira on October 22 indicated the possibility of abolishing such benefits.

The benefits are for households on welfare assistance with children who go to high school to help pay for tuitions, enrollment fees, and transportation expenses as well as to buy school materials including textbooks, uniforms, bags, and shoes. In FY 2007, about 30,000 households received the benefits.

Yoshimori Chikako, a 46-year-old welfare benefit recipient in Fukuoka City, is concerned about the government’s move to eliminate the benefits for the households with high school children that receive welfare assistance.

With a monthly wage of 100,000 yen and welfare benefits of 99,230 yen, she can manage to survive with her two high school-aged children.

For her older daughter, a senior in public high school, Yoshimori needs about 50,000 yen annually to pay for PTA fees and the cost of the school trip. When her second daughter entered a private high school last year, she had to pay 300,000 yen to buy a uniform, textbooks, and other school materials. She receives about 200,000 yen in benefits yearly that helps her cover those costs.

According to the education ministry, parents of a public high school student pay an average of 350,000 yen a year for their child to go to school. This includes 110,000 yen in tuition fees and 240,000 yen in transportation fees, reserve funds for the school trip, and costs for textbooks and other school materials. The amount for private high school is 790,000 yen a year on average, including 320,000 yen for tuition.

Hanazono University Professor Yoshinaga Jun said, “Households on welfare assistance already have no obligation to pay public high school tuitions because of local governments’ exemption systems. The benefit system is helpful for welfare assistance recipients to pay for education-related expenses for their children attending public high schools. In the case of private high school children, it helps their parents pay those expenses as well as tuitions. It is inexcusable for the government to threaten to abolish the benefit system in exchange for making high schools tuition free.”

- Akahata, November 3, 2009