| Mar 17 | Gov't to consider requiring children to live in Japan for allowances (AP) |
| The government will consider requiring foreign children to live in Japan to be eligible for child allowances, health minister Akira Nagatsuma said Wednesday, as the House of Councillors began deliberations on a bill for the subsidies. "We will consider stipulating a residency requirement for children to be eligible for the provisions when we give full consideration to the (allowances' overall) structure for fiscal 2011," Nagatsuma said at its plenary session. |
| Mar 17 | Teachers vie with other teachers to hone skills (Yomiuri) |
| Teachers and instructors at schools, juku cram schools and yobiko entrance examination preparatory schools have been invited to compete against each other in Osaka Prefecture in giving trial lessons judged by an audience, all with the aim to make everyone better instructors. The competition is titled the T-1 Grand Prix--a reference to a popular annual competition for up-and-coming manzai comedy duos nationwide called the M-1 Grand Prix. The "T" in T-1 stands for "teacher." The organizer of the T-1 Grand Prix said teachers need to compete with each other, and the event is intended to help improve teaching skills. |
| Mar 17 | You can count on the tales behind number-kanji (Japan Times) |
| When giving talks on Japan in elementary school classrooms in the United States, I chalk the kanji 一, 二, and 三 on the blackboard and ask the children to guess their meanings. "One, two, three!" they shout, easily intuiting three kanji introduced to Japanese schoolchildren in the first grade. Japanese students go on to master more than a dozen other kanji representing numerals - in addition to Arabic numerals - and they also learn to count high numbers in a way alien to their American counterparts. |
| Mar 16 | Pro-N.Korean school mums rally in Japan (AFP) |
 Hundreds of mothers whose children attend pro-North Korean schools in Japan rallied on Tuesday, demanding that the government include them in plans to make high school tuition free.
Japan's six-month-old government on the same day passed a lower house bill to scrap school fees and give aid to private schools, meeting one of their key pro-family election campaign pledges.
The pro-Pyongyang schools have so far been excluded from the programme that starts in April after opposition from conservatives who say Tokyo should not support schools linked with the nuclear-armed communist country.
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| Mar 16 | Junior high student films classmates attacking boy, posts video on Internet (Mainichi) |
| A junior high school student in the Chugoku region of Japan filmed his classmates bullying another boy, and portions of the videos were posted on an Internet movie site. There are at least two videos, shot during the school lunch break in a classroom and the music room on Feb. 14, showing four third-year boys pushing a classmate to the ground, slapping him and kicking him in the face while a number of girls laugh at the scene. |
| Mar 15 | More universities allowing students to delay graduation due to job shortage (Mainichi) |
| An increasing number of universities are allowing senior students with no job offers to stay another year under cheaper tuition as the preference for fresh graduates remains strong in the job market. As major Japanese companies tend to employ new graduates, many senior students with no job offers believe that it is better to repeat their final year and continue to look for job opportunities as college students. |
| Mar 15 | English school manager in Fukuoka indicted over shooting child porn (AP) |
 An American man running an English school in Fukuoka Prefecture has been indicted for allegedly shooting pornographic images of a girl who was his student, investigative sources said Monday.
The 69-year-old resident of Fukuoka City was indicted in early March after police seized from his home more than 600 videotapes and photographs comprising images of dozens of his students, mostly elementary school-aged girls, they said.
The man was initially arrested in January on suspicion of conducting lewd acts on his students but released later without being indicted, according to the sources.
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| Mar 15 | Govt to help students find employment (Yomiuri) |
| The government will create a five-year program to help university and postgraduate students find work amid the extremely tight labor market, it has been learned. The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry will designate the five years until 2014 as a period to help students develop their job-hunting skills and to implement such measures as providing financial support to universities that have programs to help students find work. The ministry will earmark 3 billion yen in the fiscal 2010 budget, in addition to existing subsidies. |
| Mar 14 | Imperial Household official regrets public focus on Princess Aiko's school troubles (Mainichi) |
| A senior Imperial Household Agency official has expressed regrets over the announcement of Princess Aiko's absence from school drawing far wider public attention than expected. "I feel sorry for it," said Issei Nomura, grand master of the Crown Prince's household, during a press conference on Friday. Nomura was referring to the agency's announcement on March 5 that Princess Aiko, daughter of Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako, had been away from school after complaining of severe anxiety and stomachaches apparently caused by the rowdy behavior of some boys in her class. |
| Mar 13 | 'Croesus' gives 13-year-old girl top spot in Japan's 1st spelling bee (AP) |
| Thirteen-year-old Sonia Ann Schlesinger knew how to spell "Croesus," the very word that made her the top speller in the nation's first spelling bee contest Saturday. The word, meaning a very rich man, earned the eighth-grader at Nishimachi International School in Tokyo a spot to compete in the final of the National Spelling Bee competition in Washington D.C. in June, a well-known U.S. contest where students aged between nine and 15 put their spelling skills to the test. "I was nervous all week," said Schlesinger who first tried out her spelling skills when she was in the fourth grade and recently moved to Japan from the U.S. capital. |
| Mar 12 | Japan baby-robot teaches parenting skills (AFP) |
 It giggles and wiggles its feet when you shake its rattle, but will get cranky and cry from too much tickling: Meet Yotaro, a Japanese robot programmed to be as fickle as a real baby.
The cuddly baby-bot looks unearthly with a pair of luminous blue eyes and oversized cheeks, but engineering students are hoping it will teach young people the pleasures of parenting as Japan faces a demographic crisis.
"Yotaro is a robot with which you can experience physical contact just like with a real baby and reproduce the same feelings," said Hiroki Kunimura of Tsukuba University's robotics and behavioral sciences lab north of Tokyo.
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| Mar 11 | Hatoyama says it may take time before decision on Korean schools (AP) |
| Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said Thursday his government will make a decision on whether to include pro-Pyongyang senior high schools for Korean residents in Japan in a proposed tuition waiver program after a related bill clears parliament. Hatoyama said that the government will lay out a ministerial ordinance to determine which schools will be eligible for the program after the bill, which is currently in deliberation in an ordinary parliamentary session through June 16, passes the Diet. |
| Mar 11 | 2 in 3 university students see no bright future: Net survey (AP) |
| With a sense of apprehension growing stronger among young Japanese amid the prolonged recession, roughly two in three university students in an Internet survey said they have no hope for Japan's future, U.S. asset management company Fidelity Investments said Thursday. The survey, conducted in January, covered some 2,200 students excluding freshmen. Of them, 65 percent gave the pessimistic response. |
| Mar 11 | Japan's spouse hunters hone skills at marriage school (Reuters) |
| In search of Mr. or Mrs. Right, dozens of Japanese are attending a newly launched school in Tokyo that aims turn them into marriage material. The Infini school offers various classes for wannabe brides and grooms at a time when many people in Japan are either shunning the institution of marriage or are finding it very difficult to hook up with a partner. The school, which is open to men and women, teaches students how to talk, walk and present themselves elegantly in a bid to capture the hearts and minds of prospective partners and their parents, who are often a major obstacle to successful unions. |
| Mar 10 | Japanese Students Petition to Abolish Worldwide Nuclear Arms (Xinhua) |
| A group of high school students in Tokyo are collecting signatures from people to support a world without nuclear arms to submit to the review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in May in New York, the Kyodo News agency reported on Wednesday. So far the group, consisting of more than 10 students, have collected some 3,500 signatures since last summer in their free time on weekends and mainly in the busy, youthful districts like Harajuku in central Tokyo. The students ultimately aim to collect 10,000 signatures to support their non-nuclear cause. |
| Mar 10 | Japan's first film university to be launched next year (AP) |
| A vocational film school in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, is set to become Japan's first accredited university specializing in filmmaking from April next year, with the goal of becoming an academy of motion picture arts drawing students not only from Japan but other Asian countries, the school said. "We hope to make the university a major movie hub, gathering young Asians," said Tadao Sato, head of the Japan Academy of Moving Images. |
| Mar 10 | Non-English schools hope for aid (Japan Times) |
| Private international high schools where English is not the language of instruction are hoping they will be eligible for planned annual subsidies of ¥120,000 per student, according to school officials. Unlike at more expensive English-based international schools, the subsidies, which would be disbursed at the discretion of the education ministry, would go a long way to covering tuition. |
| Mar 10 | Kids at pro-North high schools fret tuition waiver snub (Japan Times) |
 Although the Constitution stipulates that all people are equal under the law and entitled to an education, public opinion is divided on whether the ruling coalition's bill to make education free through high school should be extended to pro-Pyongyang schools. But critics say excluding students at those schools from the program would be a grave mistake and could foster ethnic discrimination.
Under the bill being deliberated in the Diet, the government will scrap tuition for students attending public high schools and provide ¥120,000 per year to those attending private schools or certified educational institutions.
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| Mar 08 | Princess Aiko attends school after being mostly absent last week (AP) |
 Princess Aiko, the only child of Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako, attended school Monday for the first time in six days after expressing anxiety since being "treated harshly" by boys at her elementary school.
The 8-year-old princess was accompanied by the crown princess in going into the school and attending the fourth period of morning classes. They then left the school together, the Imperial Household Agency said.
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| Mar 08 | Prof forced to resign over sexual harassment (Yomiuri) |
| A 52-year-old professor with U.S. citizenship has been forced to resign from Yasuda Women's University after he allegedly sexually harassed a student during a study tour of the United States last year, it has been learned. The decision was effective Feb. 15. According to the Hiroshima-based university, the professor took about 50 sophomore students on a six-month training program to the United States from September. He allegedly sexually harassed the student at a hotel in San Francisco in December. |
| Mar 07 | Suicide of new teacher ruled eligible for employees' compensation (Mainichi) |
| The death of an elementary school teacher who committed suicide two months after she started work has been accepted as a workplace casualty eligible for compensation. A Tokyo review board of the Fund for Local Government Employees' Accident Compensation accepted the suicide as being eligible for compensation following a request from the teacher's parents. It judged that heavy stress resulting from a lack of support from the school played a part in the suicide. |
| Mar 07 | Tokyo University researcher stripped of doctorate for plagiarism (Mainichi) |
| An assistant professor at the University of Tokyo has been stripped of his Ph. D. after he was found to have plagiarized his doctoral thesis, the university has announced. Anilir Serkan, 36, an assistant professor at the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Engineering, was found to have copied about 40 percent of his 376-page doctoral thesis from other sources. It is the first time for the university to take back a doctor's degree due to the plagiarism. He has reportedly admitted to allegations. |
| Mar 06 | Professor asks unions to help job-hunting students (Yomiuri) |
| Dismayed by the many newly hired university graduates who are leaving their jobs within a year--one in 10, despite the current recession--a college professor is working to help young people make more informed choices when deciding on a company. "Students don't know enough about what it's really like to work at certain companies, because they haven't been prepared for the specifics of the jobs," said Hosei University Prof. Hiroyuki Fujimura, 53. Fujimura believes students tend to rely too much on self-laudatory information provided by companies' personnel divisions. |
| Mar 06 | Nonurban students face hard job search (Yomiuri) |
| Two young men in business suits, toting large duffel bags packed with changes of clothes and job information materials, were greeted by two other men at a short-term apartment close to central Osaka early last month. All four are juniors at Yamaguchi University's economics department. They belong to the same seminars or clubs and rent the one-room apartment that is about 10 tatami mats in floor space. At the end of last year, they decided to rent the apartment as their base while they searched for jobs that would start in the spring of 2011. They split the rent, which is about 250,000 yen for three months. |
| Mar 05 | Princess Aiko unable to go to school after boys treated her harshly (AP) |
| Princess Aiko, the only child of Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako, has been reluctant to attend school since Monday after being "treated harshly" by boys in her grade, an official of the Imperial Household Agency said Friday. The 8-year-old princess has been complaining of strong anxiety and stomachache, said Issei Nomura, the top aide to the crown prince and princess. Nomura, grand master of the crown prince's household, told a regular news conference that the princess attended school Tuesday but left school early. She has since been absent from school. |
| Mar 05 | Ikeda Elementary School designated 'international safe school' (AP) |
| Ikeda Elementary School in Osaka has been designated an "international safe school" by the World Health Organization for its strenuous efforts to build safety following a violent incident in 2001 that left eight pupils dead. Ikeda Elementary School has become the first Japanese school to receive the title, given to schools which have demonstrated outstanding efforts to make their premises accident- and crime-free in collaboration with communities. |
| Mar 05 | High school girl becomes youngest winner of Nakahara Chuya Prize for poetry (Mainichi) |
"I never thought my dream would come true," said Yumi Fuzuki, 18, who became the youngest winner of the Nakahara Chuya Prize for her poetry anthology.
A third-year student at a high school in Sapporo, Fuzuki published the award-winning book "Tekisetsu na sekai no tekisetsu narazaru watashi" (The inappropriate I in an appropriate world), selecting 24 pieces of poetry from her collection written during her junior and senior high school days.
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| Mar 05 | 73% of schools to take part in national achievement tests (Japan Times) |
| About 73 percent of all elementary and junior high schools nationwide will undertake national achievement tests in April, many voluntarily, as the universal scope of the annual exam is scaled back, the education ministry said Thursday. The total number of schools participating in the April 20 tests stood at 23,891 as of the end of February. The tally was boosted as 13,891 schools - 42.5 percent of all schools or 61 percent of unselected schools - opted to take part voluntarily, on top of 10,000 selected schools, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry said. |
| Mar 04 | Suicide of girl, 14, laid to bullying (Japan Times) |
| A 14-year-old girl jumped off an apartment building and killed herself last month in a possible attempt to escape bullying at school, the board of education in Kiyose, Tokyo, said Wednesday. "I don't want to go to school anymore. Everybody else looks like my enemies," the second-year student at a city-run junior high school said in a note, according to the board of education. |
| Mar 04 | Noguchi, up in ISS, reads to Tokyo elementary school children (Japan Times) |
 Transmitting from the International Space Station, astronaut Soichi Noguchi read from a book to children at a Tokyo elementary school Wednesday. Through prerecorded video clips, Noguchi read from the picture book "Mottainai Ba-san" ("An old woman who hates waste") for about five minutes via a big screen inside the library at Aijitsu Elementary School in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward.
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| Mar 04 | Colleges teach good manners / Students get pointers on how to behave, separate garbage, obey law (Yomiuri) |
| An growing number of universities and colleges have started providing information on good manners to their students, especially freshmen, including how to behave as they travel to and from university, how to separate garbage for disposal and recycling, and why they should not break the law. Most of the advice might seem like common sense, but many university officials say they have had to train their students in good manners because many do not seem to have much awareness of what behavior is considered socially acceptable. Students at Tokyo Women's College and Junior College of Physical Education in Kunitachi, western Tokyo, are to be posted at 10 spots along the 800-meter-long route from JR Nishi-Kunitachi Station to their campus for a week in April to watch whether fellow students, especially freshmen, behave appropriately. |
| Mar 02 | Parents and kids torn by Japan's single-custody laws (MSNBC) |
| On a recent Saturday afternoon, about a dozen men and women, all divorcees, gathered at a small classroom in Tokyo's central Bunkyo district. They were there to participate in a study group on the psychological effects of custody cases. Because Japanese law does not legally recognize joint custody of minors and the court must select a sole guardian, it is an especially fraught topic. One of the participants, Natsumi Kobayashi (she requested that her real name not be used), said she had not seen her daughter for five years. Making things worse was the fact that her ex-husband had disappeared with their child - and that the courts then ruled that her daughter had established a sense of stability with her father during the years in which Kobayashi fought her case, and that removal her from his care would interfere with the child's welfare. |
| Mar 02 | Hatoyama says arrests of teachers' union members 'regrettable' (AP) |
| Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said Monday that the arrest earlier in the day of three members of a teaching union over alleged illegal donations to a Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker was "regrettable," underlining the need to review relations between politicians and organizations. Hatoyama, who heads the DPJ, made the comments after prosecutors arrested four people, including the three members of the Hokkaido Teachers Union, which is part of the Japan Teachers Union, on suspicion of illegally providing 16 million yen to Chiyomi Kobayashi, a DPJ House of Representatives member, before last year's general election. |
| Mar 02 | NHK World TV struggling for recognition (Yomiuri) |
 NHK World TV last month marked its first year of broadcasting, with the number of households around the world capable of receiving such broadcasts expanding to 124 million.
Meanwhile, NHK affiliate Japan International Broadcasting Inc., which makes its own English programs with the help of sponsors, is still struggling.
NHK began broadcasting internationally in 1995, and mainly targeted Japanese living overseas with Japanese programs. But as the government adopted a policy of strengthening international broadcasting, NHK World TV, which had broadcast partly in Japanese, became all-English in October 2008. Programming also was overhauled in February last year.
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| Feb 28 | Gender Identity Disorder girl allowed to attend school as boy (Mainichi) |
| A teenager diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder (GID) has been allowed to attend her school as a boy from April. The 13-year-old girl, who has felt uncomfortable with her gender since around 2 years old, will attend her public junior high school in Kagoshima as a boy from the new school year. The case comes on the heels of a recent recognition of an 8-year-old boy in Saitama Prefecture to attend the school as a girl after he was diagnosed with GID. |
| Feb 28 | Turning Japanese, without a textbook (clipperonline.info) |
 In the southwest corner of the Everett Community College campus, the Nippon Business Institute is changing the way students are learning.
The institute's ambitious mission is to "bridge the gap" between Eastern and Western cultures with a primary focus on Japan. Instructor Masako Nair is fulfilling this mission in her class without cracking open a textbook.
Instead of giving the traditional textbook reading assignment, students are given a short course in effective research in the library and then receive detailed worksheets that they fill out using their own research.
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| Feb 28 | Kids without a clue to their destiny (Japan Times) |
| As a Canadian national who came to Japan to teach English, I have noticed that many students fail to get a job because they lack confidence in themselves. Each day I work with high school students who are currently nearing graduation. Many haven't a clue as to what to do with their lives. Many spend too much time studying to pass an exam instead of acquiring real knowledge. The problem with most of these kids is that they don't have anyone to be their mentor - someone to give them something to look forward to, to look up to. |
| Feb 27 | Teaching visitors traditional ways (Japan Times) |
 Upon meeting Michi Ogawa, who is deftly aligning the collar of a kimono that she has tucked around her guest, a few adjectives might come to mind, like "graceful" and "soft-spoken," but "feminist" or "outspoken" probably wouldn't be among them. But speak with her about her concerns and some of your preconceptions about "typical" middle-aged Japanese women may be shaken. Ogawa, 60, is executive director of WAK Japan, a company with a mostly all-female staff offering hands-on cultural experiences to foreign visitors to Kyoto.
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| Feb 26 | Students learn about themselves in Japan (csufresno.edu) |
| Every fall, five students from Fresno State are chosen to go to Tokiwa University in Mito, Japan through the Study Abroad and International Exchange program. Tomoko Kozasa, professor of Japanese and linguistics said the program is one of the hidden gems of the Fresno State exchange programs. "For the students on this campus, the best advantage is that most of the expenses are paid by Tokiwa University," Kozasa said. "In other words they take care of airfare and accommodations." Since the program is a work-study, students are required to do some simple jobs. |
| Feb 26 | Kids raise GID issue with schools (Japan Times) |
| Students at more than 10 public schools in Saitama Prefecture, ranging from elementary to high school, have asked how they will deal with kids with gender identity disorder, the prefectural board of education said Thursday. The board said it will investigate the needs of both the students and the schools, and will compile a guideline on how to deal with students with GID by consulting with doctors and experts. |
| Feb 24 | North Korea-funded schools in Japan have an image problem (Los Angeles Times) |
| The portraits of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il have been taken down from the classrooms in the run-down Tokyo Chosen No. 2 Elementary School. But a quick look into the teachers lounge reveals the Dear Leader in all his glory. The school for ethnic Koreans in Japan, one of about 60 in the country that are funded by North Korea, faces a delicate balancing act as money from the reclusive regime has decreased amid economic turmoil there. |
| Feb 24 | Record-high 14.2% of middle, high school graduates jobless (Yomiuri) |
| A record-high 14.2 percent of middle or high school graduates aged 15 to 24 are jobless, according to a government survey. The preliminary results of a labor force survey released Monday by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry paint a bleak picture, indicating that the severe employment climate of last year has directly impacted young people. |
| Feb 24 | Night schools filling language study need (Yomiuri) |
| Middle schools that hold classes in the evening are playing an increasingly important role in teaching Japanese to foreign residents in this nation. According to the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, 80 percent of about 2,500 students at 35 such night schools across the nation are foreigners. The growth in the number of non-Japanese students at such classes, which originally were intended only for Japanese people, highlights the need to improve the Japanese language-teaching system for such students. |
| Feb 23 | Government to increase no. of school counselors (Yomiuri) |
| The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry plans to increase the number of municipal primary schools that have assigned counselors from the current 3,700 to 10,000 within the next fiscal year starting in April, it was learned Monday. The increase, which covers nearly half of the about 21,000 municipal primary schools, is aimed at enabling schools to take better care of children in light of the decline in the average age of delinquent children and an increase in child abuse. |
| Feb 23 | National vision for child-rearing (Japan Times) |
| The Hatoyama administration adopted in late January a "children and child-rearing vision" designed to help raise the nation's birthrate. The program involves a variety of initiatives and some 40 numerically defined goals. An obvious problem is where the necessary funds will be found. The program, covering five years from fiscal 2010, replaces another that had not been revised for five years. It forms the basis of the administration's basic policy for boosting the birthrate. |
| Feb 22 | Pro-Pyongyang schools could be excluded from tuition-free program (AP) |
| Pro-Pyongyang senior high schools for Korean residents could be excluded from a planned tuition exemption program if their curriculum is not in compliance with Japanese education guidelines, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano indicated Monday. "Because it concerns making senior high school education free, the education ministry will probably have to check the curriculum to see if it is truly suitable for education," he said at a news conference. |
| Feb 21 | Minister proposes Korean schools be exempt from free-tuition system (Mainichi) |
| Cabinet minister Hiroshi Nakai has asked education minister Tatsuo Kawabata to exempt so-called "chosen gakko" schools for children of pro-Pyongyang Korean residents in Japan from the government's new subsidy program to make high school tuition free from April, government sources said Saturday. Kawabata and other lawmakers in charge of education matters have started formal deliberations in light of the request from the minister in charge of the issue of the abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korean agents, the sources said. |
| Feb 21 | Financial squeeze for students (Japan Times) |
| The most recent evidence of the terrible effects of Japan's economic slowdown comes from the National Federation of University Co-operative Associations. This consumer cooperative, which researches and supports university life, reported last October that more university students than ever are having a hard time paying for their studies. |
| Feb 20 | Wakayama school uses iPod Touch for English lesson (Japan Times) |
| An elementary school in Wakayama has recently had an open English-language lesson using iPod Touch, with students watching video images of a native speaker on the small display of the digital handset. The city plans to distribute 850 of the gadgets to local schools by mid-March, as part of projects backed by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry. |
| Feb 19 | English school ordered to close / Court warned Fortress Japan last year over coercive sales practice (Yomiuri) |
| The Consumer Affairs Agency and the Tokyo metropolitan government on Thursday ordered a Tokyo-based English-language conversation school chain operator to suspend operations due to its coercive method of selling its services to university students and others. Fortress Japan talked customers into signing contracts for the purchase of English-learning programs, often telling students, "You'll never be able to find work with your current English-language abilities." |