Japón

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La falta de personal ensombrece la lucha contra el maltrato infantil en Japón

Noticias

Redacción: El Diario

Japón ha emprendido una carrera contra reloj para poner fin al maltrato infantil tras una serie de casos mortales que han conmocionado al país, pero la laxitud de la normativa y la acuciante falta de recursos humanos podrían obstaculizar esta lucha.

Como parte de las medidas que está llevando a cabo el Gobierno, el Parlamento japonés promulgó el pasado 19 de junio una revisión de la ley de prevención del maltrato infantil que prohíbe a los padres y tutores con autoridad parental usar castigos físicos, aunque algunos expertos consideran que podría ser insuficiente.

Otras voces han señalado que el Código Civil nipón, cuyo artículo 822 recoge el derecho de los padres a disciplinar a un niño «en la medida necesaria» para su cuidado y educación en beneficio del menor, puede dificultar la efectividad de la normativa.

La propia enmienda de la ley exige una revisión de esos derechos disciplinarios en el marco de dos años desde su entrada en vigor, que tendrá lugar en abril de 2020. Un panel asesor del Ministerio de Justicia ya ha comenzado a debatir sobre la potencial revisión.

«La situación que rodea al maltrato infantil es muy grave y el Ministerio de Justicia ha estado considerando una revisión, dado que el derecho (disciplinario) se ha seguido usando como excusa», ha reconocido el titular de Justicia, Takashi Yamashita.

Según datos de la Agencia Nacional de Policía, en 2018 se investigaron en Japón 80.104 casos de supuestos maltratos y abusos sexuales a menores, una cifra récord que, además, supone un incremento del 22,4 % con respecto a un año antes.

«El Centro de Consulta Infantil es principalmente el encargado de este problema, pero a menudo siento que esta organización no es lo suficientemente poderosa por falta de recursos humanos», dice Ito.

Japón cuenta actualmente con un trabajador social por cada 40.000 habitantes y el Gobierno central quiere que la cifra sea de uno por cada 30.000 para 2022, según datos facilitados por el Centro de Consulta Infantil de Tokio. Esto supone un aumento de más del 30 %.

Este objetivo pone presión sobre estos centros, que en muchos casos se ven desbordados y tienen competencias limitadas.

Sólo en Tokio, donde se concentra en torno al 10 % de la población nipona, esta meta supone aumentar el número de trabajadores sociales en más de 200 personas. Actualmente hay 315.

«Asegurar el número de personal es el gran problema, porque ya hace falta actualmente. Además de tener que aumentarlo, hay que formarlo. Aunque puede llevar más tiempo, para que tengan cierta experiencia se necesitan unos tres años», explica la responsable del departamento de asesoramiento familiar del centro capitalino, Yukyo Takenaka.

Estos trabajadores deben estudiar ciertas asignaturas, además de practicar y aprender a redactar documentos bajo asesoramiento de supervisores y expertos, porque los casos a veces van a juicio.

La política del Gobierno ha dado un giro desde el fallecimiento en marzo de 2018 en Tokio de Yua Funato, de 5 años. La niña, que tenía síntomas de desnutrición, murió dejando por escrito súplicas a sus padres para que la perdonaran y dejaran de maltratarla.

Su padrastro había sido detenido en dos ocasiones antes de mudarse a la capital bajo sospecha de haberla maltratado. Aunque esta información se transmitió al centro social en la capital pertinente, la madre de la niña impidió que los servicios sociales la visitaran.

Mia Kurihara, de 10 años, murió en enero de este año en su casa en Chiba, al noreste de Tokio, tras sufrir maltratos como ser privada de comida y sueño. Una investigación posterior reveló que también en este caso los servicios sociales, la escuela donde estudiaba y las autoridades locales estaban al corriente de la situación.

Ambos progenitores declararon que las estaban «disciplinando».

Más recientemente, Kotori Ikeda, de 2 años, murió a principios de junio en Sapporo (norte), y su madre y la pareja de ésta fueron detenidos bajo sospecha de agresión. La policía cree que la niña no estaba siendo alimentada correctamente y que podría haber sido maltratada regularmente, ya que presentaba múltiples contusiones.

También en este caso, la madre de la menor había sido cuestionada por un trabajador social tras recibir un aviso y por la policía.

La actuación de los servicios sociales fue duramente criticada en estos casos, una de las razones por las que el Gobierno ha puesto especial ímpetu en aumentar el personal y ampliar sus competencias.

Además de enmendar la ley de prevención del maltrato infantil para prohibir el castigo físico, el Parlamento japonés también ha aprobado la revisión de otra ley para fortalecer la habilidad de los centros sociales para «intervenir» en casos de maltrato y abuso.

Fuente: https://www.eldiario.es/sociedad/personal-ensombrece-maltrato-infantil-Japon_0_918308256.html
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Japan: Explore more efforts to stop school bullying

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Asia/ Japan/ 23.07.2019/ Source: www.japantimes.co.jp.

Six years after a law on measures to stop bullying in schools was introduced, school officials and boards of education continue to come under criticism for inappropriate responses to bullying cases that have prompted the victims to take their own lives. We still see cases in which the lessons from the 2011 suicide of a junior high school boy in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture, as a result of bullying by his classmates — which led to enactment of the legislation — do not appear to have been learned. Attempts by lawmakers to give more teeth to the efforts to stop bullying have stalled. It’s time to review if the anti-bullying measures under the law are serving their intended purpose.

In early June, a 14-year-old student at a junior high school in the city of Gifu fell to his death from a condominium after leaving a note hinting that he had been bullied by others at school. About a month earlier, a classmate handed a memo to their teacher charging that the victim was being bullied by other students. The teacher cautioned the students identified as bullies, but he did not share the information with senior officials at the school.

Concluding that the problem was resolved, the teacher then “lost” the memo — it was likely shredded. After the boy’s death, the school’s principal said the tragedy could have been prevented if the information about his bullying had been shared so the school could take organized action, and accused the teacher of not properly addressing the accusation made by the classmate.

The mother of a 13-year-old girl at a city-run junior high school in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, who committed suicide in December 2017 filed a damages suit against the municipal government last month, charging that the school neglected to take adequate steps against bullying of her daughter by fellow students. A third-party probe launched by the city’s board of education concluded in March that bullying by her classmates led to the girl’s suicide — and that a teacher in charge of her class had failed to take action when she complained of the bullying in a school survey.

On the other hand, many families of bullying victims who killed themselves are left dissatisfied with such probes by boards of education and file for re-investigation of their cases. In some of the cases, the conclusion of the initial investigation that there was no causal link between bullying and the victim’s suicide has been overturned, with school officials accused of covering up evidence of bullying.

The 2013 law to promote measures against bullying was enacted based on lessons from the 2011 suicide of the Otsu schoolboy, in which his school came under fire for not intervening to stop the boy’s torment even though its officials were aware of the problem, and for refusing to accept that the bullying cornered the victim into taking his own life.

The law requires teachers and officials to detect and stop bullying in its early stages. When bullying has resulted in “grave situations” in which the victim has suffered severe physical or psychological damage and has been forced into an extended absence from school, the school and local board of education are mandated to launch an independent probe and report relevant facts to the victims and their family.

As the education ministry urged schools nationwide to take steps against even minor cases of bullying, to prevent them from developing into serious situations, the number of bullying cases reported by schools has significantly increased. However, there remains a large number of cases in which the system to combat bullying under the law does not appear to be functioning as intended — as illustrated by the criticism often hurled against schools and boards of education by victims’ families.

To beef up the effectiveness of the anti-bullying measures, a group of lawmakers across party lines last year drafted an amendment to the 2013 law with an added provision that teachers and officials who learn of bullying at their schools but fail to take action would be subject to disciplinary punishment. In another draft released in April, however, that provision had been dropped out of concern that such requirements would place too heavy a burden on teachers and officials. When that angered families of bullying victims who had committed suicide, discussions on possible revisions to the law ground to a halt.

Whether or not the disciplinary measures are appropriate, it seems clear that serious cases of bullying continue to plague our schools, leading many victims into taking their own lives, despite the legislation that sought to prevent tragedies like the Otsu case. All parties involved need to think about what is lacking in the current efforts to stop bullying and help the victims, and explore what more can be done.

Source of the notice: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2019/07/19/editorials/explore-efforts-stop-school-bullying/#.XTdugOgzbIU

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Japan to boost education support for non-native children

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Asia/ Japan/ 16.07.2019/ Source: asia.nikkei.com.

 

Japan will provide more support for educating children of foreign nationals from early childhood through high school, including by increasing Japanese-language classes, under a plan released Monday.

The education ministry’s proposals follow changes in April to immigration law that allow certain foreign workers to bring family with them to Japan. Schools had already been facing a rise in students learning Japanese as a second language, prompting criticism that efforts on this front were lagging.

Monday’s plan, which calls for working «to ensure that all children of foreign nationals have educational opportunities,» seeks to provide seamless support to learners from preschoolers to job-seeking international students.

It proposes multi-language guides to ensure parents have information on how to enroll students at kindergartens and elementary schools.

Public schools are to receive more teachers for Japanese as a second language as well as aides who speak the languages of foreign students. Some schools currently have no such staff. Regions with a shortage of human resources will use translation and distance-learning systems.

Public high schools will be asked to give special considerations for Japanese-language learners when taking admissions tests, such as making it easier to read kanji characters and allowing the children to bring dictionaries into the exam rooms.

The ministry proposes creating an evening middle school program in every prefecture and major city for those who could not receive compulsory education in their home countries.

The initiative also will help international students in higher education find jobs in Japan, proposing the certification of collaboration programs between universities and businesses.

The plan covers Japanese-language learners of all ages.A 14-language online curriculum for self-study will be developed for residents of areas that lack easy access to Japanese-language classes

Source of the notice: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Japan-immigration/Japan-to-boost-education-support-for-non-native-children2

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Japan’s junior high school teachers face longest average working hours in OECD survey

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Asia/ Japan/ 08.07.2019/ Source: www.japantimes.co.jp

 

Japanese junior high school teachers worked the longest hours on average among 48 countries and regions surveyed by the OECD, it said Wednesday.

Junior high teachers in the country worked 56 hours per week on average, compared with 38.3 hours a week among all of the participants in the “2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey.”

It is the second time in a row that the OECD has found that Japanese teachers work the longest hours, and their hours increased an average of 2.1 hours from the previous survey in 2013.

Similarly, primary school teachers in Japan worked 54.4 hours a week, longer than their peers in 15 countries and economies surveyed.

The survey for Japan was conducted by the Paris-based institution from February to March 2018, with questionnaires sent to 3,568 junior high school teachers, 3,321 elementary school teachers and around 400 principals.

The education ministry decided in January to cap overtime for teachers at 45 hours per month, or 360 hours over 12 months.

A junior high school teacher spent an average of 7.5 hours per week on students’ extracurricular club activities, compared with the overall average of 1.9 hours a week, while administrative work took up 5.6 hours, compared with the total average of 2.7 hours.

Primary school teachers in Japan spent longer on planning, preparing lessons and paperwork than those in other countries. Such teachers devoted an average of 0.6 hour to extracurricular activities.

Japan’s new curriculum guidelines promote deeper learning through independent and interactive means, but the percentage of secondary school teachers who frequently or always gave “tasks that require students to think critically” was 12.6 percent, the lowest figure and a far cry from the 61 percent average among all the countries surveyed.

Further, only 16.1 percent of teachers in Japan presented “tasks for which there is no obvious solution,” compared with the 37.5 percent average among all the countries surveyed.

A 57-year-old teacher at a public junior high school in Saitama Prefecture said much of the overtime at his school is not recorded. As a veteran teacher, he is loaded with tasks, such as helping managers and taking care of younger teachers. He arrives at work just after 6 a.m. and finishes work at 7 p.m. at the earliest. On his busiest days, he works until around 9 p.m. He sometimes has to clear his backlog of work before and after the school’s extracurricular activities that he supervises on weekends.

A board of education in his local area has set a goal of not exceeding 80 hours of overtime per month, which is regarded as the threshold for karōshi, or death caused by overwork. His school introduced a system to keep track of teachers’ work hours about six months ago.

The teacher’s amount of monthly overtime topped 80 hours in April, yet his managers only prodded him to leave work as early as possible, and the school has shown little intention of overhauling teachers’ assignments in detail.

The man has since learned to record fewer hours than he has actually worked. Many of his colleagues do likewise.

“The number of work hours has decreased, when you take it at face value,” the teacher said. “But that is meaningless.”

Another teacher at a public junior high school in Tokyo said he now has reduced workloads related to extracurricular activities and other tasks.

But the 35-year-old still works 80 to 100 hours of overtime per month. He said he spends a lot of time attending to students’ parents and other things.

“The amount of work for teachers has been increasing for the sake of students. We should consider what it really means to ‘serve students well’ and review our work,” he said.

Source of the notice: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/20/national/japans-junior-high-school-teachers-face-longest-average-working-hours-oecd-survey/#.XSKS9OgzbIU

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Earthquakes are making Japan think twice about banning smartphones in schools

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Asia/ Japan/ 25.06.2019/ Source:qz.com.

 

To allow or not to allow smartphones in schools, that is the question. Educators around the world are struggling with this issue as it becomes increasingly obvious that mobile devices, the most practical of distractions, are deeply entrenched in our postmodern lives and are not going away anytime soon. Earthquake-prone Japan is no exception.

In Tokyo, mobile devices were banned altogether in elementary and junior high schools in 2009, and have been prohibited in high school classrooms. These limitations are finally being lifted due to safety concerns, the local board of education announced on June 20, according to the Japan Times.

The move comes after officials in the prefecture of Osaka rethought their ban on devices in schools last year. In June 2018, an earthquake rocked the region during morning commute hours, and the utility of cellphones then prompted the local government to lift its prohibition on the devices in educational institutions serving young students. In May, officials in Tokyo commissioned a report to assess whether the same action would be practical in the nation’s capital and concluded that it was, based on the prevalence of smartphones among students and their usefulness in emergency situations.

A study last year found that more than 97% of Japanese high school students already use smartphones. This means that in cases of emergency, the vast majority of teens could be located and accounted for via their devices. Now, principals at each municipal high school and junior high school will have to determine specific rules for their institutions and communicate the new guidelines to students. While some may allow smartphones in classrooms, others are free to choose to limit device use to commutes and can continue to prohibit them during lesson times.

Japan is not alone in its effort to contend with the contradictions of student smartphone use. However, its recent decisions run counter to the direction of some governments.

In France, classroom smartphone use for students ages three to 15 was banned last year. The measure was passed enthusiastically by a vote of 62 to one. “We know today that there is a phenomenon of screen addiction…Our main role is to protect children and adolescents. It is a fundamental role of education, and this law allows it,” education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer told French news channel BFMTV about the legislation.

However, some criticized the measure as unnecessary, as France banned all smartphone use in classrooms—except for pedagogical use—in 2010. “This isn’t a 21st-century law in our eyes, but a law from the era of news channels and binary debate,” said former teacher Alexis Corbière, a deputy from the left-wing Unbowed France party, according to a CNN report.

In California, Democratic assemblyman Al Muratsuchi of Torrance introduced a school smartphone bill (paywall) in March that would allow administrators to limit technology in schools. It would require local school boards to formulate policies on cellphone use on school grounds but will not dictate the rules, allowing administrators to reach their own conclusions.

“To the extent that smartphones are becoming too much of a distraction in the classroom, I think every school community needs to have that conversation as to when is too much of a good thing getting in the way of educational and social development,” Muratsuchi said after introducing the bill. He noted, too, that many school districts have already had these discussions and formulated such limitations.

In Australia, the New South Wales government also decided to limit cellphones in schools last year. After a review led by psychologists considered 14,000 survey responses and 80 written submissions, local officials determined that primary school kids will be barred from using smartphones in school to reduce bullying and sharing of explicit images. High schools have the option of deciding whether to participate in the ban and to what extent.

Education minister Rob Stokes noted that cellphones can be educational, “But they can also be dangerous and be a distraction.” ABC News Australia reported that the minister wasn’t concernedthat students would respond negatively to the change, explaining that many complaints about the technology actually came from the youth themselves, who claimed the devices were distracting.

 

Source of the notice: https://qz.com/1650676/japan-rethinks-school-smartphone-bans-following-earthquakes/

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«Hacia una nueva física»: Japón planea revolucionar ya este año la ciencia con este invento futurístico (vídeos, fotos)

Noticias

Redacción: Actualidad

Científicos nipones disparan neutrinos contra dos enormes depósitos subterráneos de agua pura y proyectan construir un tercero, aún más grande, que posibilitará experimentos inéditos.

Los astrofísicos llevan décadas esperando interceptar algún haz de partículas proveniente de la explosión de supernovas. Cuentan con enormes instalaciones para eso, como el observatorio de neutrinos en Kamioca, Japón.

Sin embargo, desde los años 1980 solo han detectado 24 neutrinos –todos provenientes de una sola supernova– y precisamente en esa década del siglo pasado, destacó este lunes en un artículo multimedia Jake Sturmer, corresponsal de Australian Broadcasting Corporation, quien visitó recientemente el observatorio nipón.

Ese conjunto de múltiples detectores, que recibe el nombre de Kamiokande, fue construido en un subterráneo para evitar el ruido de partículas omnipresentes en la atmósfera. Después de aquella primera hazaña, los científicos nipones erigieron una segunda versión, el Súper-Kamiokande. Allí fue registrada la primera evidencia de oscilaciones de neutrinos: otro éxito científico de los finales del siglo pasado.

Por el momento, las dos gigantescas cavernas subterráneas coexisten. «Son simplemente tanques de agua pura o muy limpia, rodeados de colectores de luz», explicó el profesor Mark Vagins, colaborador del proyecto nipón, quien acompañó al periodista a la más grande de esas instalaciones.

Estos depósitos, con 3.000 y 50.000 toneladas de agua, respectivamente, contribuyen a la busca de «pistas sobre los orígenes de nuestro Universo» por medio de la radicación de Cherenkov, producida por partículas eléctricamente cargadas a su paso por el agua y a velocidades superiores a la de la luz en dicho medio. Las paredes constan de miles de detectores dorados de partículas. Básicamente son grandes bombillas, pero «bombillas al revés», puesto que capturan la luz en vez de producirla y emiten la electricidad que consume una bombilla normal. De esta manera los físicos se enteran del paso de un neutrino a gran velocidad a través del depósito.

Una variedad de neutrinos y su detección

Cada supernova es «una bomba de neutrinos», según Vagins, quien las calificó también como «la mejor fuente de neutrinos».

A su vez, los miles de detectores son tan sensibles que si estuvieran en la Luna, podrían detectar una cerilla encendida sobre la Tierra. Además, reaccionan de manera distinta al paso de neutrinos que emanan de fuentes diferentes, lo que permite distinguir si provienen de una supernova y rompen moléculas de agua, o de una fuente terrestre (como una central nuclear), o del Sol, cuyos neutrinos también fueron interceptados por el observatorio nipón.

No obstante, Vagins comparó la posibilidad de atrapar aquellos que llegan de las supernovas con «una ventana al pasado». Y es que, según la teoría que postula, «cada átomo de oxígeno que respiramos, cada uno que está en el agua que bebemos, en el agua de nuestros cuerpos (…) se formó en el corazón de una estrella muerta, explotada, que desapareció hace mucho».

En espera de una nueva explosión de supernova, los estudiosos calibran la sensibilidad de los detectores disparando protones y neutrinos hacia el depósito. Estos disparos se efectúan desde el acelerador de partículas J-PARC, situado a 295 kilómetros de distancia y a casi 2 kilómetros de profundidad, más cerca de Tokio.

Además, los investigadores propusieron agregar al agua un metal plateado de tierras raras, llamado gadolinio, para aumentar aún más la sensibilidad del sistema detector. Vagins es uno de los científicos encargados de reiniciar el funcionamiento del conjunto a finales de este año o principios del próximo, ya con este ingrediente adicional.

Del ‘Súper’ al ‘Híper’

La caza de neutrinos podría ascender a un nivel tecnológico jamás visto con la puesta en marcha del depósito número tres, que los científicos llaman Híper-Kamiokande. Un anteproyecto apunta a una gigantesca cámara detectora de neutrinos, con 260.000 toneladas de agua y 40.000 fotomultiplicadores, que son los detectores ópticos de vacío.

Las tareas que podrían plantearse a partir de esa instalación de tercera generación «llevan más allá del modelo estándar y hacia una física nueva«, valoró el profesor Yuri Kudenko, del Instituto de Investigaciones Nucleares de la Academia de Ciencias de Rusia. El catedrático compartió este lunes con RIA Novosti los planes de largo alcance que diseñan los colaboradores del observatorio.

Kudenko destacó entre esas tareas la medición de la masa exacta del neutrino, la comprensión de la asimetría entre la materia y la antimateria y la búsqueda de algunas pistas de desintegración de protones, que es un proceso hipotético jamás visto, puesto que la expectativa de vida estimada de un protón supera la de todo el Universo.

Se espera que el Gobierno de Japón apruebe el proyecto de la construcción a finales del año en curso y que las obras comiencen en abril del 2020. La nueva instalación podría estar lista para experimentos en el 2027.

En el Súper-Kamiokande se han registrado aproximadamente 10 «eventos de neutrino» al mes (inducidos todos por el acelerador de partículas), mientras que en el nuevo depósito los podría haber hasta siete u ocho veces más, señaló el físico ruso.

La noticia, publicada en mayo pasado en el sitio web del propio observatorio, apuntó también al uso potencial del Híper-Kamiokande para medir con precisión el tiempo y cantidades de luz. El colectivo estuvo ese mes probando unos prototipos de circuitos electrónicos hechos con fibra óptica, capaces de mandar a distancia la «señal de tiempo» con una precisión cercana a 100 picosegundos (una mil millonésima parte de un segundo).

Fuente: https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/318441-detector-neutrinos-hyper-kamiokande-japon

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Japan to boost education support for non-native children

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Asia/ Japan/ 18.06.2019/ Fuente: asia.nikkei.com.

Easier-to-read entrance tests among proposals for more inclusive schools

Japan will provide more support for educating children of foreign nationals from early childhood through high school, including by increasing Japanese-language classes, under a plan released Monday.

The education ministry’s proposals follow changes in April to immigration law that allow certain foreign workers to bring family with them to Japan. Schools had already been facing a rise in students learning Japanese as a second language, prompting criticism that efforts on this front were lagging.

Monday’s plan, which calls for working «to ensure that all children of foreign nationals have educational opportunities,» seeks to provide seamless support to learners from preschoolers to job-seeking international students.

It proposes multi-language guides to ensure parents have information on how to enroll students at kindergartens and elementary schools.

Public schools are to receive more teachers for Japanese as a second language as well as aides who speak the languages of foreign students. Some schools currently have no such staff. Regions with a shortage of human resources will use translation and distance-learning systems.

Public high schools will be asked to give special considerations for Japanese-language learners when taking admissions tests, such as making it easier to read kanji characters and allowing the children to bring dictionaries into the exam rooms.

The ministry proposes creating an evening middle school program in every prefecture and major city for those who could not receive compulsory education in their home countries.

The initiative also will help international students in higher education find jobs in Japan, proposing the certification of collaboration programs between universities and businesses.

The plan covers Japanese-language learners of all ages.A 14-language online curriculum for self-study will be developed for residents of areas that lack easy access to Japanese-language classes.

Source of the notice: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Japan-immigration/Japan-to-boost-education-support-for-non-native-children2

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