The government decided October on practical elimination of the norms on personnel arrangement and qualification of after-school nursing staff for schoolboys-and-girls. The government’s organ in charge of the issue is the Experts’ Workshop of the Council of Intellectuals on Reforms of Decentralization of Power which belongs to the Cabinet Office. The criteria have been implemented just since the Fiscal 2015. Parents and concerned parties raise opinions against the decision.

IRRESPONSIBLE DECISION TO CHILDREN AND WORKING PARENTS

An after-school nursing program is designed to take care of children after school as their parents work and they are absent at home in the afternoon time. Usually vacant classrooms of schools and municipality-operating children’s halls are open. The objective is to guarantee school children to enjoy sound education activities, who play and learn with care-taker teachers.

Good quality education should be guaranteed

An after-school nursing program was stipulated in 1997 in the Children’s Welfare Act, but no standards for establishment were provided. In 2007 ‘guidelines for after-school nursing program’ were drawn up to specify basic rules on operation.

It was April 2014 when the concrete norms, called Standards on Facilities and Operation of After-school Nursing Program (an order of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare), which represented nationwide criteria that will improve quality of the curriculum.

The norms have two categories: one is norms for reference and the other is, for compliance. The latter sets personnel arrangement; (1) more than two staff members, including a care-taker teacher, should be arranged per classroom, (2) a care-taker teacher should be a certified nursery teacher or social welfare counselor who has passed the relevant training course provided by prefectures. Other norms are set up for reference, on facilities, scale of a children’s group, place and operating time and days.

No certified personnel may be arranged

The recent decision was made, responding to demands raised by municipalities which have difficulties to hire experts for the program. The sole norm to comply with is staff arrangement, which will be changed from an obligation to discretion of a municipality. That means only one person can be arranged in a classroom, or no certified personnel can be employed. It is natural that parents opposed the decision, fearing of degradation of quality of the program.

According to a report from the ministry, called ‘Facts on After-school Nursing Program in 2017’, the total number of after-school nursing teachers counts 131,336, out of which regular employees are 35,632, occupying 27.1%. Irregular employees count 44,346, occupying 33.8%, with part-time or temporary staff, counting 39,607, 30.2%. Approximately, three out of every four workers are irregular staff. Under the circumstances regularly-employed workers get exhausted due to harder assignments, while irregular workers face unstable working conditions. Thus, it is hard to arrange staff.

Safe, relaxed space for children

According to a report from the National Liaison Office on After-school Nursing Program, as of May 1, 2018, in total 1,211,522 children (an increase by 40,360 from the previous year) attend the after-school courses, while 16,957 children wait for attending (a decrease by 150, compared with the previous figure). The government announced last September of a target that it will augment by 250, 000 children during a three-year period beginning in the fiscal 2019. But the actual budget of the state government renders to 1/3 of the expenses.

Environments surrounding children are serious, as various reports say about bullying, abuses and refusal to go to school. The after-school nursing plan should provide children with a safe, relaxed space. For this purpose workers are rightly arranged with right working conditions in which they can continue to work, feeling assured.

December 11, 2018