63.5% of Non-Attending Students Unaware of Online Attendance System

Nov 13, 2025 | News On Japan

TOKYO - A recent survey has revealed that many students who do not attend school and their parents are unaware of Japan’s "online attendance" system, which allows remote learning to count as official attendance.

According to a nationwide survey conducted by a support organization targeting non-attending elementary and junior high school students and their parents, 63.5% of non-attending students from fourth to ninth grade and 26.6% of parents said they did not know about the system. Only about 10% reported having received any explanation or suggestion about it from their schools.

One parent commented, "At the school level, the system remains nothing more than a pie-in-the-sky idea. I hope it becomes a policy that truly works in practice rather than just on paper."

A woman from Kyoto Prefecture, who attended a press conference, explained that her eldest daughter, a third-year junior high school student who had stopped attending classes, was refused online attendance by her school on the grounds that "there was no precedent." She called for greater awareness and enforcement of the system across schools.

According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, as of fiscal 2024, only about 3% of non-attending students have been officially recognized as participating through online attendance.

Source: TBS

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