2021 Volume 88 Issue 4 Pages 532-544
The purpose of this paper is to consider the reconstruction of the guarantee system for general education opportunities by distinguishing between "matriculation " and "attendance."
The children of Japanese citizens are guaranteed the right to general education based on the duty of their parents to have them attend school (so-called Article 1 schools) as stipulated by the School Education Law. In this situation, it is assumed that children will attend school. Therefore, there is an institutional "pitfall" in which the right to education is not guaranteed if the child does not attend school.
Special schools for chronic absenteeism are efforts to deal with school absenteeism within the framework of "Japanese-style public education" through special provisions in the curriculum. However, only students who are chronically absent can enroll in these schools, while other children are not eligible for this special curriculum.
During the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 on, online learning and lessons have become widespread. For example, in Kumamoto City, online lessons have been distributed to students who are chronically absent.
In this situation, the 2021 report of the Central Council for Education states that ICT should be positioned as the future foundation of school education in the future, and that it is necessary to promote a hybrid of face-to-face instruction and remote/online education. Based on the above situation, if a chronically absent student attends a school class online, handling this as attendance in their cumulative guidance record means that they have attended a class at school (online "attendance"). Therefore, a priority should be placed on establishing the conditions under which attending online classes is considered attendance.
In addition, online (ICT) education in children's native language and culture can be a powerful way to ensure general educational opportunities.
Even given the declining birth rate and population, rather than having smaller schools cling to standard (suitable) class and school sizes based on attendance at a specific school, a more active discussion will be called for based on organizing the ICT (online) educational environment and realizing various forms of learning groups which make use of this environment to guarantee diverse educational opportunities.
This paper argues that a new system guaranteeing general educational opportunities is called for, separating matriculation and attendance and relativizing attendance at specific schools, in place of the existing system based on compulsory matriculation at Article 1 schools.
Under this system, municipal boards of education would be required to relativize attendance at specific public schools, allow online attendance, and create and guarantee diverse educational opportunities through networking of public schools. The paper concludes with a proposal that prefectures establish "General Education Opportunity Guarantee Councils and Comprehensive Support Centers (tentative)," responsible for wide-area networking of public school networks in each municipality and for support for solving various problems and collecting and providing information based on these networks.
