TOKYO — A record 346,482 children in Japan missed school for 30 days or more at national, public and private high schools in the 2023 academic year, according to a survey by the Ministry of Education.

The number represented an increase of 47,434 children, or 15.9%, compared to the academic year 2022, and was revealed by the “problem behavior and school absence survey” released by the ministry on 31 October.

In Japan, when a student misses school for 30 days or more per school year due to factors other than illness or economic reasons, it is defined as long-term absenteeism. The most common reason given to teachers in their consultations with long-term absent pupils was ‘lack of motivation’. In many cases, children do not receive sufficient support from specialists, and the Ministry of Education promotes measures such as providing places where they belong.

Long-term absent students have increased in number for 11 consecutive years. An Education Ministry official attributed the rise to “a growing awareness among parents that long-term absences provide an opportunity to take a break and reflect on themselves”.

In the 2023 academic year, 130,370 primary school students and 216,112 high school students enrolled in this category, an increase of 25,258 and 22,176, respectively, compared to the 2022 academic year. in high school, more absenteeism occurred, but the rate of increase tended to be greater toward the lower grades of elementary school. The Ministry of Education believes that the problem lies in how children progress from kindergarten and day care centers to primary schools.

Until the previous survey, teachers subjectively gave the factors they believed caused absenteeism, but this time the format was changed to a multiple-choice selection of the facts that teachers found, emphasizing objectivity, on the grounds that past methods they failed to succeed. accurately understands the real situation. As a result, the most common fact was “consultation about lack of motivation for school life”, at 32.2%, followed by “consultation about anxiety or depression”, at 23.1%. Because the most common factor in the previous survey was “apathy or anxiety,” the same trend was observed even with the change in survey format.

Of these non-attending students, 134,368 high school students (an increase of 20,151 from the 2022 academic year) did not receive career guidance or counseling from counselors or private organizations, either in or out of school. The Ministry of Education claims that “pupils are in contact with their home teachers and are not neglected”, but this means that around one in 2.5 such pupils do not receive adequate support from specialists.

Meanwhile, the number of recognized bullying cases also increased to 732,568 (up 50,620 from academic year 2022), and the number of “serious incidents”, where a student is suspected of having suffered serious injury to life or physical or mental health or is forced to miss school for an extended period, rose to 1,306 (up 387), both new highs. The Ministry of Education believes that the increase is due to “more active recognition” of cases of bullying.

(original Japanese by Buntaro Saito, Tokyo City News Department)