Japan Press Weekly

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2015 January 21 - 27 [ECONOMY]

Financial reconstruction gives no reason to streamline schools

Akahata editorial (excerpt)

The Education Ministry has drawn up a guideline for promoting mergers and closures of public elementary and junior high schools. The ministry will soon give an order to carry out measures based on the guideline. The integration and abolition of schools will force many children to walk a longer distance to schools and adversely affect their studying environment. It will also damage the local communities around closed schools.

The guideline states that municipalities need to swiftly consider shutting down and merging elementary schools with less than seven classes and junior high schools with less than four classes. While maintaining the current criteria of the maximum commuting distance, four kilometers for elementary and six kilometers for junior high schools, the new guideline approves a longer commute on the condition that children can go to school within around one hour with the use of school buses. The ministry made this exception in order to promote the streamlining of schools.

However, a long distance commute will increase the risk of traffic accidents and cause excessive fatigue to children. It will also deprive children of time to engage in various afterschool activities, such as sports and students’ councils and clubs.

Public schools provide local residents with a place to come together and to engage in cultural activities. They play an important role in providing emergency evacuation zones during natural disasters. The closure of schools would accelerate the erosion and aging of the population within local communities.

The government is calling for more integration of public schools with its goal of reducing education spending. The Finance Ministry demands that local governments work to reduce the number of schools based on an estimate that if all elementary and junior high schools have 12 classes or more, the number of schools would be reduced by 5,462 and the number of teachers would be slashed substantially. It is grossly wrong for the government to forcibly close schools in order to reduce the education budget without paying attention to the potential adverse effects on children and local communities.

Students’ studying environment should be the top priority in deciding the sizes and locations of schools. Municipalities should not merge and shut down schools automatically based on the Education Ministry’s new guideline.

Past related article:
> Gov’t rejects finance ministry’s request to increase class size [January 13, 2015]