Japanese children ending bitter, short summer vacation with covid-19 pandemic

 

August 30, 2020

Japanese children ending bitter, short summer vacation with covid-19 pandemic

Public schools across Japan, from elementary schools to high schools, saw their business suspended from the start of March following the spread of the covid-19 pandemic. 

School officials and teachers had expected the suspension would end sometime later in the year, but they are now determined to stay with the new virus into the new year and try to explore a new environment for education with the coronavirus. 

The bottom line is that Japan's school officials have to secure a required number of school days for a year amid the difficult situation. 

Japan's school calendar runs from April to March, including the summer holidays from July to August and the year-end and New Year's holidays around the turn of the year. 

Japan's education law requires 195 to 198 days for lessons for each of the three years at the junior high schools. 

Business at elementary schools and high schools returned to almost normal in most parts of Japan in June, but many schools had to cut short the summer vacation this year in order to catch up with the effects of the suspension from spring.

Specifically, the summer holidays were shortened to around two weeks from six to seven weeks for the usual year at many schools. As a result, school kids and students must return to school toward the end of August, beginning the second part of the three-term school year. 

The second term is crowded with many events on top of the regular learning curriculums. The biggest of them is the sports meet. 

Junior high schools usually hold the sports meet in May, but they could not do so this year amid the pandemic, and they had to postpone the event until autumn. 

"We were earlier concerned that we had to cancel this year's sports meet in autumn, too, but we desired to hold the event by all means," said a junior high school official in a small city in the Kyushu area of southwestern Japan. 

"We thought so,  because the event would be the last one for third graders before they graduate next year, and we hoped that it may be a happy memory for their life ahead,"  the official said.