Empty classrooms in Japan contrast sharply with PHL schools

View the slideshow in fullscreen. With her warm smile, the bespectacled Hiromi Tsuchiya looks every inch like she's been teaching school children for 30 years. A former nursery school and kindergarten teacher, she's now the principal of Kitayashino Elementary School in Sakai, a medium-sized city in Japan's Osaka prefecture. A group of sunny-faced sixth-graders greet her a pleasant morning as she makes her Monday morning rounds about the school. Over the past three decades, Tsuchiya has witnessed first hand the decreasing number of students enrolled in Japan's public schools. In the 1970s, she says a typical Japanese classroom had as many as nine sections per grade level, with each section having as many as 45 students. “Thirty years ago, there were too many kids, and they had to divide schools into smaller schools. Nowadays, there are only one or two classes per grade level, so the government even has to combine schools," she says. Japan’s empty classrooms are direct result of the country's low birthrate. The percentage of Japan's population below 14 years old has been decreasing since 1982, reaching an all-time low of 13.3 percent in 2009, according to Japan's statistics bureau. The figure is expected to dip further to 9.7 by 2030, making Japanese children an even scarcer resource in one of the world's richest countries. Japan’s low birth rate has been attributed to various factors, including the availability of family planning options, the high cost of raising kids, and the lack of social support for new parents especially mothers. Enrollment in Japan's public elementary schools has simultaneously declined from nearly 12 million students in 1981, to just 7.2 million students in 2007, according to Japan's education ministry. Yet while there are far fewer students, the number of schools and full-time teachers have remained virtually unchanged, resulting in smaller class sizes. In 1985, the average elementary class in Japan had just around 35 students. Today, the average is just 26. “Sa Japan kasi, nagiging aging na ang kanilang population. Mababa na sa replacement fertility level ang kanilang total fertility rate, or the average number of children born to a woman during her child bearing years," explains Tomas Osias, Executive Director of the Philippine Commission on Population or POPCOM. (In Japan, their population is aging. Their total fertility rate is lower than the replacement fertility level, or the average number of children born to a woman during her child bearing years.) Fewer students in elementary schools means that eventually, there will also be fewer skilled workers in Japan’s ever-shrinking labor force, a serious problem for the industrial powerhouse. With fewer working citizens producing new wealth, and more senior citizens to support with public money, Japan’s economy has been in recession for almost two decades now. For aspiring teachers, fewer students also means fewer available jobs. Tsuchiya says that new teachers could barely find jobs around 10 or 15 years ago. “Every year, we check how many teachers are in this school and how many teachers we actually need, depending on the class sizes. If the school doesn’t need teachers, the government adjusts," she says. “But now because some teachers are retiring and getting older, there's more space for new teachers," she added. Japan's situation is a stark contrast to the Philippines, where there seems to be no shortage of children. The World Bank predicts that the Philippine population will top 100 million by 2015. The National Statistics Office (NSO) predicts that by the year 2025, almost three in every 10 Filipinos will be below 14 years old. This will put more stress on the country's public schools, which even now are struggling with crowded classrooms and the lack of qualified teachers. This graph from a 2006 survey by Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology shows a downward trend in enrollment in Japanese elementary schools since 1950. Filipino pro-life advocates have argued that reducing the country's birthrate may eventually put the Philippines in a predicament similar to that of Japan, where the aging population has created new problems for the government—like how to provide health care and social security to a growing number of elderly dependents. But population experts say that the Philippine situation may not be comparable to that of Japan. Osias of POPCOM says it’s unlikely that the Philippine birthrate, the highest in Asia, will slow down anytime soon to match that of Japan, one of the lowest in the world. “It will not be true to the Philippines, because Filipinos love children. Doon kasi sa ibang bansa, ayaw na mag-anak. Gusto nila mag-enjoy sa pagiging single nila," explains Osias. (In other countries, they don't want to have children. They would rather enjoy being single.) While smaller class sizes may not spell good news for the future of Japan’s working force, teachers see it as an advantage in terms of the quality of public education that students receive. “Nowadays we teachers help students figure out what they want to study, and then we help them find the answers. We teachers just support whatever the students want to do," says Hiroue Hinoue a sixth-grade teacher also at Kitayashino Elementary School. “When we had more students, we couldn't pay attention to each student. Nowadays, students are getting fewer and fewer, so we can pay attention to each student," Hinoue adds. -YA, GMANews.TV