2005年の文科省の調査によれば、学校側は、給食費未納者の60％を「保護者の責任感や規範意識の問題」と認識。これは「経済的な問題」とみている33％を上回った。 （画像提供：共同通信社）

* 2007/2/27 配信 ALC Newsletter No.54(ALC International Marketing 発行)より

* クリックできる語句には、語注がついています

Most public elementary schools and junior high schools provide their students with school lunch. In Japan, elementary and junior highs are established as compulsory education, so parents are not required to pay tuition for public schools. However, they do have to pay school lunch fees. The average fee is about 3,900 yen (about 33 US dollars) a month for elementary, and 4,500 yen (about 38 US dollars) a month for junior highs.

However, it has been a growing issue that the amount of unpaid school lunch fees is increasing. According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, more than 2.2 billion yen (about 18.4 million dollars) of school lunch fees remained unpaid in 2005. The problem is, not only that some families cannot afford the fee, but even some relatively wealthy families are reluctant to pay it.

But why are they choosing not to pay the required fee for their children? According to the same research, schools are recognizing that parents tend to be less responsible these days. In other words, some of them aren't paying the fee just because they don't want to. As a result, teachers have to call or visit the parents and persuade them to pay the fee. The task is becoming a heavy burden on teachers, of course, both physically and mentally.

Meanwhile, school lunch is a happy childhood memory for most adults in Japan. Bottled milk, fried bread with sprinkled sugar, noodles with curry soup...some of our favorite school meals stay in our minds. If there was someone absent, students would fight over desserts, half-jokingly and half-seriously. School lunches provide students with not only a well-balanced diet, but also precious memories of school days. In order to keep this system functioning smoothly, parents must be responsible enough to pay what is needed for their children.