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The story
It has come to light that at an elementary school in Kizugawa, Kyoto Prefecture, the principal and others covered a total of 37 million yen in unpaid school lunch and school-supply fees out of their own pockets, without reporting it to the municipality. A former administrative staffer reportedly covered about 20 million yen, and the principal about 17 million yen; the city board of education is said to be demanding the principal pay the remaining balance. Hiroyuki Shoji, a former teacher and chief researcher at the Benesse Educational Research Institute, commented that “it’s not the right thing to do, but I understand the feeling,” pointing to how chasing down unpaid fees has become a heavy burden on teachers, and to the need for “public accounting” — having municipalities, rather than schools, collect lunch and supply fees. On 5ch, opinions split between criticism of non-paying families, calls for the public purse to shoulder the cost, and broader doubts about the school system itself.
Regarding the issue at an elementary school in Kizugawa, Kyoto Prefecture, where the principal and others covered 37 million yen in unreported, unpaid school lunch and supply fees out of their own pockets, Hiroyuki Shoji, chief researcher at the Benesse Educational Research Institute, says: “It’s not appropriate, but as a former teacher, I understand the feeling.”
In fee-collection work, he explains, teachers typically end up caught in the middle — repeatedly pressing parents for payment while vendors demand payment from the school. Teachers are already overworked, and chasing down debts adds serious mental strain on top of that.
Shoji says full free tuition for compulsory education would be the ideal, but if that can’t happen right away, municipalities should thoroughly adopt “public accounting” — collecting lunch and supply fees themselves rather than leaving it to schools. He adds that the country as a whole needs to think about supporting families who truly can’t pay, while also building in safeguards against people simply getting away without paying.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
More detail from a related thread:
– Total unpaid amount since fiscal 2012: about 54 million yen
– Former administrative staffer → covered about 20 million yen
– Principal → covered about 17 million yen
– City board of education → says it's demanding the principal pay the remainder, citing "improper handling and supervisory responsibility"
That last line is the real kicker — kind of funny.
Makes you wonder if someone was actually embezzling a slush fund and this can't be said out loud… *cough cough*.
That's basically abuse, honestly. If they truly have no money to pay, the kid should be placed in care instead.
It should be free — or rather, the national government should be footing the bill.
Also, if teachers are eating lunch in the classroom with the students, that's not even a proper break — that's a labor law violation.
Since free school lunches get criticized too, there's also a push to just collect the money from parents instead.
There are plenty of greedy people who only think about how to get things for free.
Just switch to a bring-your-own-lunch system.
Then you'll get parents who skip packing lunch, counting on other kids' lunches or the teacher's sympathy.
At this point there's no choice but to make everyone bring their own lunch. Make it free and people just complain the portions are too small anyway.
For some households, school lunch is literally the only nutritious meal a kid gets — that's rough for a young kid to deal with.
If you want to eat, pay up (´･ω･｀)
If that's how you feel, then pay!
Well yeah — that was back when an egg cost 10 yen, a salmon or mackerel-pike fillet was 100 yen, and 10kg of rice went for under 3,000 yen.
The government should cover school lunch fees and all of this.
And cutting the unnecessary classes would bring costs down too.
Fair point. You can buy all that stuff way cheaper through online retailers, so it's understandable people don't want to pay rip-off prices for it.
Like that's actually going to fix anything…
What are people thinking when they just dump everything on the government to handle?
Makes you realize civil servants really do earn good money.
Though it does mention supply fees too, so that part will probably keep being an issue.
It was an Asahi article — so much for credibility, lol. Makes you wonder when this actually even happened.
School lunch fees weren't made completely free — it sounds like wherever the national subsidy falls short, they're still collecting fees from parents.
What the Ministry of Education actually approved was 5,200 yen a month in support. Any cost above that is still on the parents.
Can't help it — it's basically a facility for training monkeys into reasonably functional humans. Decent families have no choice but to go the private-school exam route.
That's been said forever. It's not a place to actually study — it's just a place to learn social skills.
That would solve it, and there are plenty of solutions just like that one. The real problem is that neither politicians nor bureaucrats want to touch this issue — so it never actually gets solved.
I like that idea!
Re: #179
The child-allowance idea is good too, that'd be the fastest fix.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
The 37 million yen in question is the accumulated total of unpaid school lunch and supply fees since fiscal 2012, with a former administrative staffer covering about 20 million yen and the principal about 17 million yen out of pocket. Chasing down unpaid fees is often left to principals and teachers individually, creating a structural problem where they’re squeezed between their obligation to pay vendors and the task of pressing parents for payment. The thread split over whether support for non-paying families or a stronger collection system to stop people from “getting away with it” should take priority. It’s also worth noting a common misunderstanding: while national subsidies have reduced school lunch costs somewhat in recent years, lunch fees are not fully free, and supply fees continue to fall on parents. “Public accounting” — a system where municipalities collect fees directly — already exists as an option, but many municipalities nationwide still haven’t adopted it, which is exactly the kind of gap that leads to cases like this one, where individuals end up covering the shortfall themselves.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “[School] Paying School Lunch Debts Out of Pocket: ‘Not Right, But I Understand Why,’ Says Former Teacher.”
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