school system

Why so many Japanese children refuse to go to school

enero 1, 2020enero 1, 2020Alessia Cerantola

By: Alessia Cerantola.

In Japan, more and more children are refusing to go to school, a phenomenon called «futoko». As the numbers keep rising, people are asking if it’s a reflection of the school system, rather than a problem with the pupils themselves.

Ten-year-old Yuta Ito waited until the annual Golden Week holiday last spring to tell his parents how he was feeling – on a family day out he confessed that he no longer wanted to go to school.

For months he had been attending his primary school with great reluctance, often refusing to go at all. He was being bullied and kept fighting with his classmates.

His parents then had three choices: get Yuta to attend school counselling in the hope things would improve, home-school him, or send him to a free school. They chose the last option.

Now Yuta spends his school days doing whatever he wants – and he’s much happier.

Primary school children — Image captionJapanese primary school children (file picture)

Yuta is one of Japan’s many futoko, defined by Japan’s education ministry as children who don’t go to school for more than 30 days, for reasons unrelated to health or finances.

The term has been variously translated as absenteeism, truancy, school phobia or school refusal.

Attitudes to futoko have changed over the decades. Until 1992 school refusal – then called tokokyohi, meaning resistance – was considered a type of mental illness. But in 1997 the terminology changed to the more neutral futoko, meaning non-attendance.

On 17 October, the government announced that absenteeism among elementary and junior high school students had hit a record high, with 164,528 children absent for 30 days or more during 2018, up from 144,031 in 2017.

A dog hangs out with pupils at Tamagawa Free School

The free school movement started in Japan in the 1980s, in response to the growing number of futoko. They’re alternative schools that operate on principles of freedom and individuality.

They’re an accepted alternative to compulsory education, along with home-schooling, but won’t give children a recognised qualification.

The number of students attending free or alternative schools instead of regular schools has shot up over the years, from 7,424 in 1992 to 20,346 in 2017.

Dropping out of school can have long-term consequences, and there is a high risk that young people can withdraw from society entirely and shut themselves away in their rooms – a phenomenon known as hikikomori.

More worrying still is the number of pupils who take their own lives. In 2018, the number of school suicides was the highest in 30 years, with 332 cases.

In 2016 the rising number of student suicides led the Japanese government to pass a suicide prevention act with special recommendations for schools.

Tamagawa Free School — Image captionFree schools set their own rules

So why are so many children avoiding school in Japan?

Family circumstances, personal issues with friends, and bullying are among the main causes, according to a survey by the ministry of education.

In general, the dropouts reported that they didn’t get along with other students, or sometimes with the teachers.

That was also the case for Tomoe Morihashi.

«I didn’t feel comfortable with many people,» says the 12-year-old. «School life was painful.»

Tomoe suffered from selective mutism, which affected her whenever she was out in public.

«I couldn’t speak outside my home or away from my family,» she says.

And she found it hard to obey the rigid set of rules that govern Japanese schools.

«Tights must not be coloured, hair must not be dyed, the colour of hair elastics is fixed, and they must not be worn on the wrist,» she says.

Many schools in Japan control every aspect of their pupils’ appearance, forcing pupils to dye their brown hair black, or not allowing pupils to wear tights or coats, even in cold weather. In some cases they even decide on the colour of pupils’ underwear.

Strict school rules were introduced in the 1970s and 1980s in response to violence and bullying. They relaxed in the 1990s but have become more severe recently.

These regulations are known as «black school rules», reflecting a popular term used to describe companies that exploit their workers.

Now Tomoe, like Yuta, attends Tamagawa Free School in Tokyo where students don’t need to wear a uniform and are free to choose their own activities, according to a plan agreed between the school, parents and pupils. They are encouraged to follow their individual skills and interests.

There are rooms with computers for Japanese and maths classes and a library with books and mangas (Japanese comic books).

Two students in Tamagawa Free School — Image captionStudents can choose what to activities they want to do in free schools

The atmosphere is very informal, like a big family. Students meet in common spaces to chat and play together.

«The purpose of this school is to develop people’s social skills,» says Takashi Yoshikawa, the head of the school.

Whether it’s through exercising, playing games or studying, the important thing is to learn not to panic when they’re in a large group.

The school recently moved to a larger space, and about 10 children attend every day.

Shoes outside the free school — Image captionAbout 10 children attend Tamagawa Free School every day

Mr Yoshikawa opened his first free school in 2010, in a three-storey apartment in Tokyo’s residential neighbourhood of Fuchu.

«I expected students over 15 years old, but actually those who came were only seven or eight years old,» he says. «Most were silent with selective mutism, and at school they didn’t do anything.»

Mr Yoshikawa believes that communication problems are at the root of most students’ school refusal.

Takashi Yoshikawa opened a free school in 2010 — Image captionTakashi Yoshikawa first opened a free school in 2010

His own journey into education was unusual. He quit his job as a «salary man» in a Japanese company in his early 40s, when he decided he wasn’t interested in climbing the career ladder. His father was a doctor, and like him, he wanted to serve his community, so he became a social worker and foster father.

The experience opened his eyes to the problems children face. He realised how many students suffered because they were poor, or victims of domestic abuse, and how much this affected their performance at school.

Part of the challenge pupils face is the big class sizes, says Prof Ryo Uchida, an education expert at Nagoya University.

«In classrooms with about 40 students who have to spend a year together, many things can happen,» he says.

Prof Uchida says comradeship is the key ingredient to surviving life in Japan because the population density is so high – if you don’t get along and co-ordinate with others, you won’t survive. This not only applies to schools, but also to public transport and other public spaces, all of which are overcrowded.

Students watch rugby practice from their classroom in Ichihara — Image captionComradeship is key to surviving school

But for many students this need to conform is a problem. They don’t feel comfortable in overcrowded classrooms where they have to do everything together with their classmates in a small space.

«Feeling uncomfortable in such a situation is normal,» says Prof Uchida.

What’s more, in Japan, children stay in the same class from year to year, so if problems occur, going to school can become painful.

«In that sense, the support provided for example by free schools is very meaningful,» Prof Uchida says. «In free schools, they care less about the group and they tend to value the thoughts and feelings of each single student.»

Image captionChildren playing in Tamagawa Free School

But although free schools are providing an alternative, the problems within the education system itself remain an issue. For Prof Uchida, not developing students’ diversity is a violation of their human rights – and many agree.

Criticism of «black school rules» and the Japanese school environment is increasing nationwide. In a recent column the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper described them as a violation of human rights and an obstacle to student diversity.

In August, the campaign group «Black kosoku o nakuso! Project» [Let’s get rid of black school rules!] submitted an online petition to the education ministry signed by more than 60,000 people, asking for an investigation into unreasonable school rules. Osaka Prefecture ordered all of its high schools to review their rules, with about 40% of schools making changes.

Prof Uchida says the education ministry now appears to accept absenteeism not as an anomaly, but a trend. He sees this as a tacit admission that futoko children are not the problem but that they are reacting to an education system that is failing to provide a welcoming environment.

Bringing Japanese Educational Approaches to Egyptian Schools

agosto 27, 2019agosto 26, 2019Saitō Katsuhisa

By: Saitō Katsuhisa.

A World First

Under the Egypt-Japan Education Partnership administered by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, Egypt is the first country in the world to adopt tokkatsu, an integral part of Japanese education, throughout its school system.

Egypt, a leading Arab nation, is famed for its pyramids, but its education system is rife with problems. Teachers are poorly paid and frequently moonlight as tutors or cram school operators, practices that parents have complained about. Under pressure to excel academically, students may fail to develop well-rounded personalities. Since there are too few schools to meet demand, classes with 70 or 80 pupils are not unusual, and school graduates are increasingly failing to find jobs. Given these myriad issues, the government decided that the time was ripe for educational reforms.

Egypt’s president, Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, has always been highly impressed by punctual, industrious Japanese, whom he has called “a walking embodiment of the Quran.” In the Arab world, it is commonly believed that Japan’s education system has been key to its success as an advanced nation. Sisi, visiting Japan in 2016, concluded the EJEP agreement with Japan to introduce elements of Japanese schooling into all levels of the Egyptian education system.

Egypt-Japan Schools Opened

Egypt’s education authorities saw tokkatsu—activities outside of school subjects intended to foster children’s all-round development—in Japanese elementary schools as a way of nurturing well-rounded individuals in Egypt. Tokkatsu including class meetings were introduced on a trial basis in 12 public schools, and 35 brand-new Egypt-Japan Schools opened in September 2018. At these schools, tokkatsu are part of the school day, and the schools follow Japanese operational methods. Kakehashi Tarō, an assistant director in JICA’s Basic Education Group, says that 45 minutes per week of tokkatsuactivities were incorporated into the curriculum for first graders at all elementary schools in the country at the same time.

Tokkatsu includes a number of key activities. Class meetings, where pupils discuss and decide on topics for schoolwide events, help them learn to express their ideas and respect those of others. Guidance consists of helping pupils to acquire good habits like washing their hands and brushing their teeth, training them to give proper greetings, and encouraging them to be considerate of others. All pupils take the role of class leader of the day in turn; this teaches children leadership and gives them the experience of leading the class. Egypt’s education system has never included activities like tokkatsubefore, so this has been a novel experience.

Children brushing their teeth after lunch. This activity is part of overall guidance to promote good hygiene. More children are now participating voluntarily.

Unlike schools for Japanese children living abroad, EJS institutions are tokkatsu model public schools attended by local children. The schools have introduced practices common in Japan, such as study periods and classroom cleaning by pupils, intramural seminars where teachers observe each others’ classes and offer teaching hints, and school staff meetings.

Children Cleaning Classrooms: A Novel Experience

One tokkatsu practice that raised issues was cleaning. In Japanese schools, pupils clean their classrooms and other parts of their schools as a matter of course. In Egypt, though, cleaning is viewed as a menial task carried out by the lower classes, and children and their parents alike were shocked that they were expected to clean. Some pupils initially refused to participate, and parents also protested, saying they were not sending their children to an EJS to clean. But the idea of everyone working together to keep classrooms and other spaces clean is starting to take hold. Some pupils started cleaning, and others, seeing their friends doing so, eventually joined in. Everyone learned to keep their desks neat and tidy too.

Classroom cleaning. Some pupils disliked the idea at first, but now most participate in this activity meant to teach teamwork.

JICA education experts make the rounds of EJSs and continue to offer advice. Up to now, 42 people, including school principals and teachers in charge of introducing tokkatsu, have participated in month-long training sessions in Japan that include a first-hand look at Japanese schools in action. Over the next four years, JICA envisages bringing a total of about 700 teachers to Japan for similar training.

These schools have been in operation for barely a year now but are already showing results. For example, EJS attendees have shown solid progress in listening to what their classmates are saying and respecting their ideas. Tardiness is also less of a problem now, children are quarreling less at school, and more children are helping with chores at home.

Egypt-Japan Schools offer a pleasant environment: The buildings are new and class sizes, at around 35 to 40 pupils, are about half the size of classes at other public schools. Tuition, however, is expensive, costing the equivalent of ¥60,000 to ¥70,000 yearly, which is 5 to 10 times the tuition at regular schools. According to JICA’s Kakehashi, “There are no EJS entrance examinations, but we have asked the Egyptian authorities to ensure that the schools don’t turn into places just for children from high-income families. We hope the government will offer more scholarships and make it easier for those who want to enter EJS institutions to do so.”

Developing Human Resources

Ayman Ali Kamel, Egypt’s ambassador to Japan, says that through the EJS program, “Egypt hopes to learn from Japan’s experience to contribute to social progress and effect comprehensive reforms to the education system. We view classrooms and elementary schools as miniature societies, and we hope that these societies will inculcate a sense of morality in our children and help mold their personalities.”

Hany Helal, Egypt’s former minister of higher education and scientific research, who worked as a coordinator between Egypt and Japan to set up the EJEP and other projects, comments: “The most important issue for Egypt is developing high-quality human resources, which has been difficult to accomplish with our existing education system. We hope to improve our learning environment by introducing features of Japanese education like tokkatsu to nurture the upcoming generation driving our country’s future.”

Source of article: https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/g00727/bringing-japanese-educational-approaches-to-egyptian-schools.html

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Vietnam increases domestic participation in international schools

octubre 2, 2018octubre 1, 2018Anton Crace

By Anton Crace

A new decree from Vietnam’s government will increase the allowed proportion of domestic students in foreign-owned international schools, in a move being viewed by experts as a bid to attract more foreign investment and potentially encourage more students to remain in the country.

Decree 86, which was first mooted in 2017 and came into effect on 1 August, will allow international schools in Vietnam to have 50% of their enrolments made up of domestic students, upping the proportion from 10% for primary and 20% for secondary education.

“It is likely to become a ‘buyer’s market’ to the benefit of the target clientele of parents and students”

“The government is keen on attracting more foreign direct investment and expanding educational opportunities for its young people,” said Mark Ashwill, managing director of Capstone Vietnam.

“I think this is part of the recent trend of encouraging more foreign direct investment, and opening up Vietnam’s economy to the world. It’s a smart and timely decision.”

There has been increased interest in international schools among middle-class families in Vietnam, and the decree, which now permits teaching the National Curriculum in those schools, will likely have a positive impact on student choice, according to Ashwill.

“With more choices available than ever for parents and students, international schools will have to be at the top of their games in terms of curriculum, teaching staff, facilities, ancillary services, and reputation in order to be successful in the long-term,” he said.

“It is likely to become a ‘buyer’s market’ to the benefit of the target clientele of parents and students.”

In creating a buyer’s market, Phan Manh Hung, the attorney who helped the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training create the decree, said the new objective would also have a positive impact on state-owned schools.

“The Vietnamese government is hoping… more families stay in the country”

“The state-owned school systems reveal poor performance with a lot of weakness in terms of training quality,” he said.

“The competition between the private schools and state-owned schools would create the good opportunities for improvement of training quality.”

In implementing decree 86, which replaces the earlier decree 73, Hung said the government was tweaking its policies in order to alleviate concerns from foreign investors that setting up international schools would not be viable without domestic students.

As well as primary and secondary education, Hung said the Vietnamese government had also started eyeing investment in higher education, after a recent report from the department of foreign training noted more than 110,000 of its citizens were studying abroad, paying up to US$40,000 per year.

“This suggests that Vietnam is exporting about US$3bn every year to overseas education,” he said.

“The Vietnamese government is hoping that more K-12 international school options for local families in Vietnam will encourage more families to stay in the country, at least until higher education if not beyond, thereby reducing the number of Vietnamese studying abroad.”

Conversely, Ashwill said the decree might increase the opportunities for Vietnamese students to travel for their studies.

“[The new decree] will enable more children from well-to-do families to attend international schools, which will better prepare them for overseas study, the ultimate goal of many,” Ashwill said.

Among its other changes, decree 86 will also allow local kindergartens to link up with foreign entities, and sets the minimum investment to establish a university to one trillion Vietnamese dong, or 250 billion for a foreign-branch campus.

Vietnam has been active recently in establishing its ties with other countries, signing an agreement with Ireland and entering talks with other European nations in late 2017.

Source of the article: https://thepienews.com/news/vietnam-increases-domestic-participation-in-international-schools/

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There are hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children in residential schools around the world today

octubre 2, 2018octubre 1, 2018Alicia Kroemer

By Jo Woodman and Alicia Kroemer

On September 30, communities across Canada will be commemorating ‘Orange Shirt Day’, an annual event that is helping Canadians remember the thousands of Indigenous children who died in Residential Schools, and to reflect on the intergenerational trauma that was caused by the Residential school system. Similar school systems were also run in the US, New Zealand and Australia with terrible consequences for Indigenous children and communities.

Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation elder Phyllis Jack Webstad founded Orange Shirt Day in 2013, after she shared her childhood experience at the St. Joseph’s Mission residential school in William’s lake, British Columbia.

Residential school staff stripped her of her favourite orange shirt the day she was taken from her family. As Residential school survivor Vivian Timmins said today, “The orange day shirt is a commonality for all Native Residential School Survivors because we had our personal items taken away which was a tactic to erase our personal identity. Maybe it was a piece of clothing, but it represented our memory that connected us to families. Today is a time to honour the children and youth that didn’t make it home. It’s a time to remember Canada’s dark history, to educate and ensure such history is never repeated.”

Alarmingly, that history is being repeated in many parts of the world. According to Survival International, there are nearly one million tribal and Indigenous children across Asia, Africa, and South America who are currently attending institutions that bear a striking resemblance to Canada’s residential schools.

A horrifying legacy lives on

The horrifying legacy of residential schools is being repeated, on a massive scale, because the attitudes and intentions underlying Canada’s residential school system live on.

Tribal and Indigenous children around the world are being coerced from their families and sent to schools that strip them of their identity and often impose upon them alien names, religions, and languages.

Extractive industries and fundamentalist religious organizations are frequently pulling the strings behind these institutions.

One residential mega-school in India—which boasts it is “home” to 27,000 Indigenous children—states publicly that it aims to turn “primitive” tribal children from “liabilities into assets, tax consumers into tax payers.”

Its partners include the very mining companies that are trying to wrest control of the lands these children truly call home.

Parents have described the school as a “chicken farm” where children feel like “prisoners.”

An expert on Adivasi education told us, “Their whole minds have been brainwashed by a kind of education that says, ‘Mining is good’, ‘Consumerism is good’, ‘Your culture is bad.’ Tribal residential schools are institutions which are erasing the autobiography of each child to replace it with what fits the ‘mainstream’. Isn’t it a crime in the name of schooling?”

Without urgent change, many distinct peoples could be wiped out in just a few generations, because the the youth in these schools are taught to see their families and traditions as ‘primitive’, ‘backward’ and inferior to ‘mainstream’ society so that they turn their backs on their languages, religions and lands.

Survivors of Canada’s residential schools are beginning to speak out against these culture-destroying institutions.

Roberta Hill is a survivor of the Mohawk Institute in Brantford, Canada, where she was abused by the pastor and school staff in the 1950s and 60s. She sees the strong parallels between her experience and that of Indigenous children in these modern culture destroying schools: “What’s happening right now at these residential schools in India and beyond is very similar to what happened with the residential schools in Canada – this separation of Indigenous children from their family, language, and culture is a very destructive force. My experience at residential school was traumatizing. I was taken from my family at the age of six and put in the school where I experienced a lot of abuse and isolation. If this is happening again now, then there needs to be international attention. It needs to stop or else they are going to go through the same thing that we went through. It will cause irreparable damage – not only to the Indigenous children attending, but to the future generations of that community.”

RG Miller, a prominent Indigenous artist from Canada states: “My horrific experience at Native residential school destroyed my connection with community, family, and my culture. The abuses I suffered there completely broke any sense of trust or intimacy with anyone or anything including God, spouses, and children for the rest of my life.”

Over the past two decades, thousands of residential school survivors have shared their stories of abuse; but there are thousands of other children who will never be able to tell their own stories because they passed away while they were in a residential school. Other children, like Chanie Wenjack, died while trying to escape. The young Ojibwe boy ran away from his residential school in Ontario, trying desperately to reach home, 600 km away. He died of hunger and exposure at the age of 12 in 1966.

Half a century later—and 12,000km away—Norieen Yaakob, her brother Haikal and five of their friends, fled their residential school in Malaysia. The children, who belong to the Temiar—one of the Orang Asli tribes of central Malaysia—ran away to avoid a beating from their teacher. 47 days later, Norieen and one other little girl were found, starving but alive. The other five children died, including Haikal and seven-year-old Juvina.

Juvina’s father, David, told us, “The police said, “Why are you bothering us with this problem?” We felt hopeless. It was only on the sixth day that the authorities began their search and rescue mission for the children. But they told us parents to stay behind. They said if we went in it would just be to secretly give food to the missing children that we were supposedly hiding. They accused us of faking the whole incident to gain attention and force the government to help us more. That was what they thought of us… [Finally] they found a child’s skull and we could not identify immediately whose child it was. We had to wait for the post-mortem. I could not recognize my own child.” The families are currently taking the authorities to court in a case that the world should be watching.

The terrible truth is that Indigenous children are dying in these schools. In tribal residential schools in Maharashtra state in India, over one thousand deaths have been recorded since 2000, including many suicides. With echoes of the traumas experienced in Canada, many parents never learn that their children are ill until it is too late, and they often never know the cause of death.

There are also a frightening number of cases of physical and sexual abuse, very few of which reach the justice system. Government schools across Asia and Africa are often staffed by teachers who have no connection to, or respect for, the communities they serve. Teacher absences are common, and abuse goes unseen and unreported. The potential for devastating damage is extremely high.

Survival International will soon launch a campaign to expose and oppose these culture destroying schools and to demand greater Indigenous control of education, before it is too late for these children, their communities, and their futures.

There is certainly a need for it. These schools endanger lives and strip away identities, but they also deny children the right to choose a tribal future.

The ability of Indigenous Peoples to live well and sustainably on their lands depends on their intricate knowledge, which takes generations to develop and a lifetime to master. To survive and thrive in the Kalahari Desert or to herd reindeer across the Arctic tundra cannot be learnt in residential schools, or on occasional school vacations.

What’s more, in this current age of severe environmental degradation, climate change and mass extinctions, Indigenous Peoples play a crucial role in preserving the world’s ecosystems. They are the best guardians of their lands and they should be respected and listened to if we have any hope of survival for future generations.

Rather than erasing their knowledge, skills, languages, and wisdom through culture-destroying residential schools, we must allow them to be the authors of their own destinies as stewards and protectors of their own lands.

Source of the article: https://intercontinentalcry.org/there-are-hundreds-of-thousands-of-indigenous-children-in-residential-schools-around-the-world-today/

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Canadá: Glaze-inspired education bill subject to heavy criticism in committee hearing

marzo 5, 2018marzo 5, 2018Noticias

Canadá/ 05.03.2018 / From: www.thechronicleherald.ca.

Proposed legislation that would radically change the administration of Nova Scotia’s school system was derided as “undemocratic” and “unneeded” Monday as critics lined up to condemn the bill before a legislature committee.

More than 60 speakers were scheduled to make presentations before the law amendments committee on Bill 72, which would largely implement reforms recommended in a recent report by education consultant Avis Glaze.

Among other things, the legislation would eliminate the province’s seven English language school boards while revamping the membership of the 9,600-member Nova Scotia Teachers Union to remove about 1,000 principals, vice-principals and senior supervisors.

Union president Liette Doucet called on the government to remove provisions that would shift administrators from the union to an affiliated association.

“This is punishment, pure and simple, for the strong role that principals, vice-principals and administrators have played in the NSTU since its inception, up to and including work-to-rule last year and the first provincewide strike of the NSTU,” said Doucet.

She said the change would rob school administrators of basic protections, including the right to challenge discharges, suspensions or demotions for just cause.

It was a change of tone from last week when Doucet said there was hope of a new start for the union’s relationship with the government. On Monday, she said trust would once again be an issue if the legislation is passed as is.

“We can never trust that a collective agreement — a contract — is worth any more than the paper it’s written on. This government’s strong-arm approach to unions and collective bargaining has the potential to destroy collective bargaining in this province for the foreseeable future.”

Peter Day, a middle school teacher from Sydney Mines, N.S., said there was nothing in the legislation that would improve student achievement.

“The recommendations of the Glaze report are a fabricated solution to a crisis in education that does not exist,” he said, adding that the closing of school boards was “an attack on democracy.”

Day said more human resources — including teachers, speech language pathologists and social workers — would make a bigger difference in schools than administrative changes.

Suzy Hansen, a member of the Halifax Regional School Board, told the committee she opposes the elimination of boards as an African Nova Scotian with six children in the school system.

Hansen said she was worried about the unintended consequences on “the achievement gap” between the academic performance of African Nova Scotian children and other students.

“We are unaware of what policies are going to be kept and what aren’t going to be kept,” said Hansen. “There definitely are things that need to be addressed, but doing a clean sweep and an abrupt change so quickly is not going to help. It’s only going to push us back further.”

While most of the early speakers before the committee spoke against the legislation, consultant Paul Bennett spoke in favour of it, although he said it could be improved.

Under the legislation, the Acadian school board would remain in place, while the other boards would be replaced by a new Provincial Advisory Council of Education composed of 15 members representing all regions of the province.

School board offices would remain in place, but they would become regional education centres that would continue to make regional and local decisions, although the superintendents would report to the deputy minister of education. There would also be local advisory councils under the proposed model.

“I think you need to consider the regional centres and the executive directors of education. I really don’t think they are going to be sufficiently strong to represent the public,” Bennett said.

He said regional school advisory councils should be governing bodies to make them more accountable.

“Phase out the school boards, yes — decentralize decision making, restore democratic accountability and we’ll all be further ahead,” he said.

Meanwhile, a small group of protesters gathered outside the legislature to call on the government to pause the legislation.

“Nova Scotia is losing 57 elected women and removing African Nova Scotian and Indigenous voices from local decision-making,” the group said in a news release.

The legislation could pass final reading as early as Wednesday.

From: https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/1550595-glaze-inspired-education-bill-subject-to-heavy-criticism-in-committee-hearing

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Why so many Japanese children refuse to go to school

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