An izakaya group called“Dads gathering” has emerged in the Tokyo suburbs to talk about“Kids not wanting to go to school”, the daily news of Japan reported Wednesday.
In recent years, there has been an increase in mutual aid organizations for parents of truant students in Japan, but the majority of participants are mothers. The monthly dads’ gathering is intended to provide a place for anxious fathers to vent about their stress and sort out their emotions.
School absenteeism is on the rise in Japan, with the number of children missing classes increasing for the 12th year in a row. About 354,000 students in public and private schools and high schools skipped more than 30 days of school in the 2024 fiscal year, a record high, according to the Ministry of Education, Culture, sports, science and technology. Problems such as school bullying, academic pressure and interpersonal relationships are believed to be the main reasons for the rising number of truancy.
A total of 760,000 incidents of school bullying were reported in Japanese primary, middle and high schools, of which 1,405 were classified as serious bullying, according to the Ministry of Education, Culture, sports, science and technology.
In this context, local governments in Japan are accelerating the construction of reception systems for truant students, hoping to provide new learning spaces for students who are difficult to adapt to the traditional classroom environment. A new“Diversity Learning School” in Tokyo’s Setatani District is able to tailor its curriculum to the realities of dropouts. Kochi also opened separate classrooms in the public library, reducing the number of teaching hours from 1,015 hours in regular schools to 770 hours a year, and added artistic expression and experiential classes. Japan added 25 such schools in April, bringing the total to 84,59 public and 25 private.
Event organizer Hiroshi Yoshizawa believes that the family is an important harbor of healing and recovery, for parents, to be able to vent anxiety space is also important. He hopes that support programs for fathers will spread across the country.