The number of elementary and junior high school students who received financial support for school supplies and other expenses for economically disadvantaged families decreased slightly last year to over 1.29 million, accounting for 14.2% of the total.
Tuition assistance is a system in which municipalities support the cost of school lunches and school supplies in order to support the learning of elementary and junior high school students from economically difficult families.
According to the results of a survey released by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology this month, a total of 1,298,315 elementary and junior high school students nationwide received support for school attendance last year, down 26,706 from the previous year.
The "scholarship support rate", which indicates the ratio of all public elementary and junior high school students, was 14.2%, which also decreased by 0.2 points compared to the previous year.
The number of children and students decreased for the 10th consecutive year, and the "school support rate" decreased for the 9th consecutive year.
Regarding this situation, Sakiko Sakiko, a professor at Atomi Gakuen Women's University who is familiar with the tuition assistance system, said, ``Because it is a system that you can't use unless you apply for it yourself, you may hesitate to apply because you don't know if you are eligible for the system, or because you don't know your family situation. It seems that some people feel confused about being known by the school.We should devise methods such as dissemination and application methods so that everyone who needs it can use it."