Alternative education as a choice in delivering education to all children

Six years of elementary school and three years of junior high school: nine years of compulsory education is provided at almost no cost to every child in Japan. Students spend approximately 200 days at school every year, taking 945-980 hours of classes a year on average. This means that during the school term, children spend most of the day at school.

The school attendance rate in Japan soared from 45% in 1887 to 96% in 1905, as the compulsory education system was introduced along with the development of modern industry and the improvement of people’s living standards. It brought about high proficiency in literacy and numeracy, achieving economic growth and eliminating social division from the society, giving a chance to live life as one desires. And today, education is still essential to living without exploitation and leading a self-fulfilling life. Like so, the right to education is a fundamental human right that every child deserves.

However, in modern Japanese society, the increasing truancy rate is a consistent issue. The number of students absent for more than 30 days has increased for seven consecutive years. In 2019, more than 180,000 elementary and junior high school students in Japan refused to go to school. As mentioned above, most elementary and junior high school students spend most of the day in their classroom. Thus children who feel uncomfortable there lack the motivation to attend school itself. Although the importance of education and acquiring sociability doesn’t change for any of these children, the current educational system seems to lack the capability to handle the problem promptly, resulting in educational inequality.

For many students and their families who suffer from truancy, alternative education is one solution to protect their right to education. Alternative education is a generic term of various forms of schooling that differ from the mainstream educational system or program. Independent schools, home schools and online learning are some examples, providing unique and diverse programs and learning models to respond to the needs of disaffected students.

An alternative school called “Study place” also provides distinctive learning programs for children in Japan to tackle educational inequality. It uses ICT in teaching, which can correspond to each student’s achievement and learning style. It also has unique programs such as programming courses and discovery learning, which are hands-on activities that support students in running online interviews, visiting university libraries, or collaborating with top-tier fashion brands to set up their own flea market booths.

Yuichi Kusaba, the representative of Study place, says relative poverty creates achievement gaps, which affects the students’ school attendance and results in educational inequality. Very often, children in low-income families have no other choice but to attend traditional schools even if they don’t fit in, because alternative education is costly. Study place offers scholarships to these children so that they too can choose where and how to learn. In fact, any student (not only truant students) who wishes to take advanced programming courses and STEM education can also come to this diverse learning space.

As technology grows year by year, it develops new learning styles and various alternative education. If students feel uncomfortable in the mainstream education system, alternative schools are viable options. Since the education system exists to protect the children’s right to education, society’s role is not to persuade them to adapt to traditional schools, but to ensure students find a comfortable learning environment. As the truancy rate in Japan increases, the necessity to establish more alternative schools, as well as to extend the support for children living in relative poverty, require immediate attention and addressing.