summary
Many families in Japan were seeking to change the situation with their vote in Sunday’s House of Councilors election. As of last October, there were 45,315 applicants who had been denied places in public nursery schools around the country because of a lack of space. Particularly mothers facing the risk of losing their jobs or a chance to start work, it was no wonder an anonymous blog post unleashing the pent-up frustration of one mother who failed to get her child into nursery school went viral. “Failed to get a slot in a nursery school yesterday…Damn you, Japan.” Although there are party saying to arrenge infrastructures for child care and nursing care, experts said the problem is long-standing and will not be resolved in a day, urging parents to continue pushing for structual reforms beyond the election in Japan’s elderly-focused society.
opinion
I think that this problem is very serious and we must take the situation seriously. My mother works as the director of a nursery school. I heard her about the present circumstance. She said that the situation is little by little better than ever before, and the number of child on the waiting list for daycare has been decreasing. She opened up and start operating a nursery to help children. That is to say, she runs two nurseries now. I respect her for my mother and the director. But, most of young people are not interested in this problem, and not go to vote. If we take an interest in this situation, we have no choice but to go to vote. In fact, Japan’s present infrastructures for child care and nursing care aren’t very well, and I think that this situation continues. A shortage will exist due to overwhelming demand. We should go to vote to change the present situation if we want to change the future situation.