The number of elementary and junior high school students who refuse to attend school in Japan has exceeded 350,000 — the highest ever recorded. Perhaps it’s time we reconsider what “education” really means.
More than 350,000 children in Japan are now classified as school refusers — the highest number ever recorded.
There are many ways to receive an education.
Some schools teach large groups together, while others focus on individualized instruction.
Sizes vary widely — from huge schools where you never share a class with the same student twice, to small ones where everyone stays together until graduation.
If the purpose is simply to impart knowledge, private tutoring is more than enough.
That’s how the children of nobles and royals were educated, after all.
School education is said to nurture social skills, communication, cooperation, responsibility, and independence through group life.
But how much of that goal is really being achieved today?
Experts say the surge in absenteeism is partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reduced contact with others during that period made reentering group life even more difficult.
Even now, many still wear masks that hide their faces — I myself barely remember what some of my colleagues look like below the eyes.
For children who have grown up with little social interaction, suddenly being told to “get along with everyone” is unrealistic.
When I was a child, parents sometimes dragged their kids to school by force — but those days are gone.
There’s no longer any need to go that far.
The pandemic has undoubtedly accelerated this shift.
Just as we began covering half our faces with masks, the rise of online tools has made physical presence unnecessary.
If the goal is simply to study, everything can be done remotely.
“Social skills” — that invisible concept — no longer justify going to school.
Study is concrete.
It produces measurable results.
There is no reason to attend school if it only makes you miserable.
Especially when even teachers can no longer be blindly trusted — with predators and eccentrics hiding in plain sight.
Should we treat truancy as a social problem, or as a sign of educational diversity?
Either way, society will continue to change rapidly.
Perhaps we should even find a new word to replace “futōkō,” which still implies something negative.
Still, if those raised in an age where not going to school is normal enter the workplace, I can’t help but worry — about the inevitable complaints, harassment claims, and misunderstandings that will follow.
