Japan Press Weekly

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2016 February 10 - 16 [EDUCATION]

8 million signatures calling for improvements in education submitted to Diet

Calling for drastic improvements in education, 8,132,593 signatures were submitted to the Diet on February 23 as part of a campaign to collect 30 million signatures which parents and teachers are promoting nationwide.

The petition drive demands:
- Reduce the class size to below 30 in primary, junior high, and high schools;
- Reduce parents’ burdens for school expenses;
- Provide high school education to all students who wish to enroll;
- Improve education for disabled children;
- Drastically expand state subsidies to private schools;
- Conduct safety checks, repairs, and renovations of school buildings;
- Increase the number of school teachers and staff.

In a rally held in front of the Diet building, All Japan Teachers and Staff Union (Zenkyo) President Ishimoto Iwao said, “This petition drive has been carried out together with the campaign in opposition to an adverse revision of the Fundamental Law of Education. Our wish reflected in this petition directly confronts the Abe Cabinet notion of ‘educational reform’.”

A woman participant from Osaka said, “Parents wish for pressure-free education, not a competition-driven education using the national academic proficiency test.”

On behalf of the Japanese Communist Party Dietmembers group to which the submission of the petition to the Diet was entrusted, JCP Vice Chair Ishii Ikuko said, “Although the Abe Cabinet is pushing ahead with its ‘educational reform’ it fails to increase the budget for education. The JCP will make efforts to achieve this.”