10,000 Foreign Kids in Japan with Education Status Unknown

Tokyo, March 25 (Jiji Press)--A total of 10,046 foreign children eligible for elementary or junior high school education in Japan were not or may not have been in education as of May last year, an education ministry survey showed Friday.

Such children accounted for 7.5 pct of the total 133,310 eligible foreign children living in Japan.

The total number of foreign children who were or may have been out of education dropped by 9,425, or 48.4 pct, from the previous fiscal 2019 survey.

The drop came after many local governments started compiling rosters of foreign children's names and their school attendance status and delivering guidebooks for starting school to related households, ministry officials said.

The latest survey covered 1,741 municipalities across Japan. Children with non-Japanese citizenship are not subject to compulsory education in the country.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]