61521    Effective this April, public schools nationwide will adopt a five-day school week schedule twice a month with the second and fourth Saturday off.

61522    As the new system will be implemented without making revisions to the existing Guidelines for the Course of Study that was established based on the six-day school week system, it is not hard to imagine that the schools are having a tough time making the new class schedules.

61523    After studying 642 elementary, junior and senior high schools that had Saturday off twice a month on an experimental basis, the collaboration council of the Ministry of Education concluded that "the twice-monthly Saturday-off system could be implemented without revising the current guidelines" which the Ministry of Education accepted and it decided to go ahead with the implementation this spring."

61524    However, when looking at the situation at those participating schools, about 40 percent of elementary and junior high schools and 30 percent of senior high schools were making up the hours lost from the Saturday school closures by providing additional instruction, even if only a little, on other weekdays.

61525    Furthermore, 90 percent of elementary schools, 80 percent of junior high schools and 50 percent of senior high schools among those that participated reduced school events.

61526    A considerable number of schools have curtailed the "time for relaxation."

61527    They have been managing to maintain the number of class hours by cutting back the spring and fall field trips to just once a year and adding a sixth period to the traditional five-period a day schedule.

61528    Consequently, comments such as "children seem tired everyday," "it has been even busier instead of relaxing," and "events that they enjoyed have been cut back and school is not fun anymore" are being heard in the classrooms.

61529    The purpose of implementing the five-day school week system was supposed to provide some "breathing space" for children as well as teachers, both mentally and physically.

61530    Particularly, it was intended to help children to develop practical academic skills and a well-rounded personality by freeing them from cramming down a hodge-podge of information and providing them more opportunity to go through a diverse range of experiences first hand.

61531    The five-day school week system must be based on that original intention.

61532    What should be done to achieve this?

61533    For a start, in setting up a timetable, each school needs to select the content of every class even more carefully in order not to make up those hours lost from Saturday school closures by tacking them onto classes on other days.

61534    Teachers will need to change their mindset that they must teach children everything in the textbook, think about what is particularly important to children and focus on those areas during class.

61535    Also, school events should remain on the school calendar whenever possible instead of being sacrificed to maintain the class hours.