Japan Press Weekly

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2009 May 20 - 26 [TOKYO]

Tokyo’s high schools cannot afford to buy library books

Librarians at Tokyo Metropolitan Government-run high schools groan, “We cannot afford to renew library books even when they are tattered.”

In the past ten years, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government has cut the budget earmarked for the purchase of library books at metropolitan high schools by 64.6 percent from about 530 million yen to 187 million yen.

In particular, since Governor Ishihara Shintaro took office in 1999, the budget for this purpose has been aggressively cut.

As a result, the budget allotted for library books per metropolitan high school a year was 678,900 yen in FY2007, down sharply from about 1.5 million yen in FY1999. In these eight years of the Ishihara administration alone, there has been a 55-percent budget decrease, approved by Liberal Democratic, Komei, and Democratic parties as well as the Seikatsusha Net.

A librarian at a metropolitan high school complains, “We cannot afford to buy enough books to meet the demands of teaching staff and high school students. This is one of the negative influences of cutbacks in metropolitan school budgets as promoted by Governor Ishihara. We are calling for a 50 percent increase in the budget for the purchase of library books.”

An official of the metropolitan government’s Education Bureau admits that reduced-educational budgets are causing deficiencies in library books at metropolitan high schools, saying, “The minus-based budgets may have contributed (to it).”

A former executive of the metropolitan Board of Education also admits that the present educational budgets are too small, saying, “It is necessary to increase the budget for study materials that teachers and students use in class.”

The Japanese Communist Party in the metropolitan assembly has been calling for an expansion of educational budgets, including an increase in the budget for buying library books and in the number of librarians at metropolitan schools.

JCP metropolitan assembly representatives proposed that the metropolitan government incorporate 187 million yen for the purchase of library books at metropolitan high schools into the FY 2009 budgets, but this was rejected because the LDP, Komei, DPJ, and the Seikatsusha Net opposed it.