Japan Press Weekly

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2013 January 23 - 29 [WELFARE]

Abe Cabinet to shelve small-class size plan

Japan’s government led by the Liberal Democratic Party and Komei Party coalition decided on January 26 that it will lay aside a plan to introduce small-sized classes into all grades in public elementary and junior high schools.

Pressed by a popular campaign for smaller class sizes and repeated requests from Japanese Communist Party lawmakers, the last administration headed by the Democratic Party of Japan revised a law in 2011 to limit class size to 35 students for all first graders at public primary schools in the country. In 2012, the DPJ government extended the system to cover second graders.

Aiming to introduce a 35-student class size limit in stages to all grades at public elementary and junior high schools within the next five years, the Education Ministry requested a budgetary appropriation of 11.3 billion yen for fiscal 2013. The Abe Cabinet, however, rejected the request.

Before the cabinet decision, the Fiscal System Council, an advisory panel to the finance minister, expressed disapproval of the Education Ministry’s project on the grounds that the cost effect of small-class sizes is “unknown”.

Regarding this issue, All-Japan Teachers and Staff Union (Zenkyo) Secretary General Imatani Kenji told Akahata as follows:

At present, an overwhelming majority of the general public is in favor of implementing a limit on the numbers of students per class. It is unpardonable for the Abe administration to drop the plan. Promoting small-class sizes is vital to guarantee the right to education for all children who are being faced with serious circumstances such as increasing poverty as well as the widening gap between rich and poor.

After all, education is not the kind of thing that should be discussed from a financial viewpoint. The government should drastically increase the education budget that has remained at the lowest level in the advanced capitalist world.