Around 7 percent of all foreign children in Japan of elementary to junior high school age, or 10,046 children, may not be attending school, government data showed Friday.
But the number of such absentee school children as of May 2021 was down by almost half, or by 9,425, since the last survey by the education ministry, conducted in 2019.
Elementary and junior high school education is not compulsory for foreigners, unlike for their Japanese peers. But they can receive public education for free if they wish.
The ministry says the improvement since 2019 is possibly attributable to its efforts to encourage school boards to help more foreign children attend school.
The survey was carried out in 1,741 municipalities across Japan, covering 133,310 foreign children listed on resident registries. It found that 649 children did not attend school but could not confirm the school attendance status of 9,397 children.
The ministry says it will encourage local governments to enhance their awareness about the situation and to be proactive in reaching out to foreign families.
The data showed that 1,214 municipalities have more than one foreign child who is of compulsory-education age. Of these, 85.3 percent have created school registers for foreign children, and 85.9 percent have sent school information to foreign families before their child becomes eligible to enter first grade.
Additionally, the ministry found 47,627, or 40 percent, of all foreign pupils going to public elementary through high schools or special schools need Japanese-language support in their daily or school lives.
This is the highest number since such a survey was first conducted in fiscal 1991, which the ministry attributes to an increase in foreign children attending public schools.
The ministry says it will study further whether children are being excluded from normal classrooms because of a lack of Japanese-language ability.
To help foreign children, it has decided to introduce a system to recognize special Japanese instruction classes in high schools as a formal unit, starting from April 2023.
