Japan to spend around Y2 tril to subsidise education: report

So the state pays 150,000 plus for childcare

I think the amount the government will pay will be capped at far less than that, around Y30000 per month as I understand it. It certainly won't be enough to cover the cost of full time child care.

free childcare for low-income households with children up to 2 years old

What this effectively means is that the state is going to pay to look after children to enable parents to work in low-income jobs. So the state pays 150,000 plus for childcare so one parent can earn less than that. It must be less because they are low income. If the childcare is free for low income, you are also incentivizing the parents to remain low income and not hit the limit where they start having to pay. Millions of married women earn just below the income level where they start having to pay their own pension and health care. That is observed real world behaviour.

So why doesn't the state just give that parent 75,000 yen in child benefit and tell the person to raise their own child? Anyone raising their own infant is effectively saving the state 150,000 yen plus a month. Many self-employed people in Japan are low income in that they don't take very much salary. They may be very successful but will be putting everything on expenses. So do these people get free childcare too?

Childcare for under threes is the most expensive to fix and hyped problem regarding childrearing in Japan. Thousands of people may be on waiting lists for a couple of years, but they are vastly outnumbered by the millions of parents in Japan facing unfamily friendly work practices (and blatant sexism) in the workplace and uncareer-friendly PTA, club, and neighbourhood obligations while raising their kids. These problems continue throughout the time you spend raising your kids.

A good step in the right direction.

There are currently massive companies using millions of dollars in grants to set up kindergartens and other kindergartens are renovating or becoming larger entities with more capabilities. Such as 保育園 becoming 子ども園。

Excellent social measures which PM Abe's government intends to take for the welfare of the Japanese public , is the most applaudable move that will usher in more prosperity and security for the people of the country.

@Disillusioned - Sounds like 40% will be spent on education and another 40% on child care with the rest going to the aging. How is this bad? Also the money earmarked for facilities may be spent on creating additional facilities.

@Goodluck - you make a good point. This has been going on in the west for decades. I am not sure if this program is or will be the root cause which "forces" mothers into low paid part time jobs though.

The headline is misleading. He’s not gonna spend the money on education. He’s gonna split it up between aged care, child care, and a few university grants. It’s all well and good to give child care subsidies, but they are pointless if there are no vacancies in child care facilities. Unfortunately, Mr. Abe is far off the mark and spouting rhetoric, again!

GREAT!

children should be with a primary caregiver up to age of 3. forcing mothers into low paid part time jobs will create social problems like those experienced in hong kong where teens identify with their peers and not parents. crime, child prostitution, drugs, bullying and youth gangs is the result. the other case senerio is teletabie babies pacified with video screens.

This commitment to improving the archaic education system in Japan may just mean textbook revision that publishers may not want to do

There's no mention of that at all; it's all daycare for the tinies, and free university. (Actually publishers welcome textbook revision; they get to sell more books to a captive audience).

There would have to be a massive, earth-shaking change in the way English is taught here for it to actually work.

Make sure the English teachers actually do speak English. (Send them to English-speaking countries, preferably England (the hint is in the name), followed by Canada, Wales, Scotland, some parts of the US where the accent isn't too strong, Australia (sorry) if you must.

Drop the rote-learning model. Every sentence spoken is an original creation. There is always more than one answer to any question.

Drop the 'arrange these words into a sentence' -type of test exercise. It's meaningless.

Drop the 'change all these active-voice verbs into passive voice or vice versa' exercises - they are worse than meaningless, they teach kids that there is no meaningful difference between active and passive.

Make English compulsory in elementary school, elective after that.

This commitment to improving the archaic education system in Japan may just mean textbook revision that publishers may not want to do, but is absolutely necessary when it comes to teaching English at all grade levels. Question: "How are you?" Response: "I am fine, and you." In the public junior high school, it is the one and only response students have to satisfy an official test question. If the government wants student to enjoy learning English and, more importantly, be able to use it, the textbooks must be revised to teach a variety of answers. In addition, more vocabulary needs to be presented and presented over and over in later chapters rather than some very short story about an umbrella that only opens when it rains. That kind of material is very important, but it has to be supplemental material. The highest priority is to send all English teacher to the USA, specifically, the west coast. One contact is the California Foreign Language Teaching Association. It is ready to help find host families for teachers. Education has to be relevant and usable.