Japan Press Weekly

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2013 February 6 - 12 [EDUCATION]

Don’t exempt Korean schools from tuition-free program: students demand

A rally to call for making North Korean schools tuition-free took place inside the Diet building on February 7.

The Abe government is intending to not apply the tuition-free program which the previous government introduced in 2010 to North Korean schools on the grounds that North Korea’s abduction issue shows no progress.

The present government has already proposed that the ministerial ordinance associated with the tuition-free law be revised in order to exclude these schools from high schools eligible for tuition-free education. In protest against this move, Korean school students in Osaka and Aichi prefectures filed a lawsuit in late January, demanding tuition-free Korean schools.

At the rally, a female student in her senior year at a Korean high school said, “The right to learn should also be guaranteed for Korean school students.”

A mother of a Korean high school sophomore said, “To sincerely address this issue is my responsibility as a mother.” Regarding the lawsuit in which the children themselves stand as plaintiffs, “They can raise their voices when their dignity is being trampled. I feel proud of them,” said the mother.