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.
61536 The Guidelines for the Course of Study are asking children to learn through a diverse range of experiences.
61537 Personal relationships among children and between teachers and children can be deepened through the school events.
61538 And, above all, they make school life fun.
61539 This kind of significance of school events must not be forgotten.
61540 The next request goes to the Boards of Education.
61541 They must be flexible enough to accept the class hours in the curriculum submitted by each school.
61542 The number of class hours is defined in the appendix of the Enforcement Regulations of the School Education Law.
61543 For example, the number of hours of instruction is specified per grade for each subject, moral education, and special activities, with 306 being the hours for Japanese and 850 the total number of hours of instructions for the first grade.
61544 While these hours of instruction are regarded as a "standard," it is actually being treated as the "minimum."
61545 The Boards of Education do not accept any curriculum that does not observe this rule.
61546 Under these circumstances, the schools have no other choice but to automatically cut back school events and make up hours lost from the Saturday school closures by tacking them onto the regular hours of other days.
61547 The Boards should treat the "standard" as a "rule of thumb" and recognize the implementation of a "five-day school system" that is unique to each school.
61548 Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education should amend this restrictive five-day school system and tackle the drastic revision of the educational guidelines towards a complete five-day school system.