Reform of club activities in public junior high schools: Current status and challenges of transition to “local development”

The government is pushing ahead with reforms to club activities at public junior high schools. This is called ``regional development,'' which involves entrusting club activities to local clubs, organizations, and human resources, or operating them in collaboration.

The "Reform Promotion Period" from FY2023 to FY2025 has ended, and the "Reform Implementation Period" has begun from this fiscal year. The plan is to complete the regional expansion of all club activities on holidays by fiscal 2031, and to promote it on weekdays as well.

There are two purposes for regional expansion. One is to support the sports and cultural activities of junior high school students as a whole, as the number of school-based clubs has increased due to the declining birthrate. Another goal is to reduce the burden on teachers who serve as advisors for extracurricular activities.

Renamed from "Migration" to "Deployment"

Until last year, a system known as ``regional transition,'' in which holiday activities were delegated to outside school leaders and clubs, was promoted through repeated trial and error in various regions. Starting this year, the name has been changed to "Regional Development."

In reality, many local governments seem to think that entrusting the entire operation to outside the school is difficult due to a lack of human resources on the part of local contractors, and that it is more realistic for the school and local community to work together to manage the operation. The reality is that the binary view of ``school or community'' does not fit the current situation.

Guy released by the country last December...