March 18, 2016
Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on March 17 published policy proposals to halve university tuitions in ten years and to provide scholarships of 30,000 yen a month to one in four university students.
Shii held a press conference in the Diet building and pointed out that Japan is a nation where the level of tuition is one of the highest in the world and where a public scholarship program is absent. He said that the constitutional right for equal education opportunities is being violated. The urgent need is to correct this situation in order to better the future prospects for Japanese society, Shii stressed. The JCP chair proposed two policies in this regard.
The first is to increase state subsidies to universities so they can reduce tuitions by half within ten years. Regarding national universities, the JCP policy seeks to lower their tuition from the current 530,000 yen a year to 260,000 yen. It also seeks to set up subsidy programs to help private and public universities to lower their tuitions.
The second is to offer scholarships—30,000 yen a month or 360,000 yen a year—to 700,000 university students. The amount, 30,000 yen per month, is around a half of the average amount of public education loans that students currently receive each month. The quota on the proposed scholarship program, 700,000 students, amounts to about one half of public student loan recipients or one-fourth of all university students.
Shii said that what the government claims is a “public scholarship program” is actually a “student loan program” and called for a drastic reform of this program.
In addition, Shii noted that the government needs to implement an increase in minimum wages which is a demand being raised by young people. He insisted that the minimum hourly wage should be increased to at least 1,000 yen nationwide without delay and possibly to 1,500 yen. Shii added that the government should also improve support for small- and medium-sized companies so they can afford to pay the proposed higher minimum wages.
Shii held a press conference in the Diet building and pointed out that Japan is a nation where the level of tuition is one of the highest in the world and where a public scholarship program is absent. He said that the constitutional right for equal education opportunities is being violated. The urgent need is to correct this situation in order to better the future prospects for Japanese society, Shii stressed. The JCP chair proposed two policies in this regard.
The first is to increase state subsidies to universities so they can reduce tuitions by half within ten years. Regarding national universities, the JCP policy seeks to lower their tuition from the current 530,000 yen a year to 260,000 yen. It also seeks to set up subsidy programs to help private and public universities to lower their tuitions.
The second is to offer scholarships—30,000 yen a month or 360,000 yen a year—to 700,000 university students. The amount, 30,000 yen per month, is around a half of the average amount of public education loans that students currently receive each month. The quota on the proposed scholarship program, 700,000 students, amounts to about one half of public student loan recipients or one-fourth of all university students.
Shii said that what the government claims is a “public scholarship program” is actually a “student loan program” and called for a drastic reform of this program.
In addition, Shii noted that the government needs to implement an increase in minimum wages which is a demand being raised by young people. He insisted that the minimum hourly wage should be increased to at least 1,000 yen nationwide without delay and possibly to 1,500 yen. Shii added that the government should also improve support for small- and medium-sized companies so they can afford to pay the proposed higher minimum wages.
