July 8, 2022

The Japanese Communist Party has acquired the most support from citizens in an online poll regarding each political party’s view on education issues at home and abroad which was conducted by a civil group working to achieve the UN global education goal, or SDG4.

The JCP also received the highest recognition from citizens among political parties in efforts to achieve the SDG4, one of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, which aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

The poll was carried out as part of the SDG4 Education Campaign promoted by the Japan NGO Network for Education (JNNE), whose members include the Save the Children Japan and World Vision Japan, for the purpose of having citizens’ voices heard in the Diet and the government.

The JNNE prior to the poll sent eight political parties, including the JCP, questionnaires asking them about their views on six issues, such as children’s right to express their opinions and the introduction of tuition-free education. The NGO in the poll presented eight political parties’ responses to the six questions without showing their names and asked people to choose the most preferable response for each question. Among the poll participants, teens accounted for nearly 50%.

In the questionnaire, asked about whether to approve the insert of phrases concerning the children’s right to express opinions in the government’s basic plan for the promotion of education, the JCP in its reply expresses its approval and stated that the respect for this right should be a fundamental principle of education.

On the other hand, the Liberal Democratic Party gave no clear answer and the right-leaning “Nippon Ishin no Kai” party answered that there is no need to add such a right to the basic plan.