Japan Press Weekly

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2012 December 19 - 25 [EDUCATION]

Senior high students rally to demand free education

Students of senior high schools and colleges on December 24 gathered in Tokyo’s major shopping district, Shibuya, to hold a rally demanding cost-free education.

After the rally, participants marched in demonstration through the district with a Christmas party atmosphere.

A survey of senior high school students which was conducted by the rally’s organizing committee shows that 70% of respondents said that costs for high schools such as text book fees, should be decreased to zero or nearly zero.

A 19-year-old private university student receives a grant-type scholarship from a shinkin bank, a cooperative regional financial institution. However, under the contract for scholarship, if he repeats a year or withdraws from school temporarily, the bank will terminate the grant payment to him and require him to return the full amount of the grant. “I feel pressured because I can’t be absent from class even though I’m in bad health,” he said.

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The Liberal Democratic Party plans to introduce income limits to the current tuition-free high school education system.

The Democratic Party of Japan-led government in April 2010 launched a system in which households with children going to public high schools are exempted from paying tuition and households with children going to private high schools receive 118,000 yen in government subsidy annually.

In Japan, compulsory education includes only elementary and junior high school, but 97% of children graduating from junior high schools go onto senior high schools. Therefore, senior high school should be considered the final stage of compulsory education in Japan and should be provided free of cost. Even tuition free higher education is a world trend.