Photo/Illutration Masahiko Shibayama, chair of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s working team on the issue of moving the start of a school year to September, gives a speech at party headquarters on May 12. (Ryo Miyazaki)

The government and the ruling coalition will likely shelve a proposal to change the start of the academic year to September after teachers and educational experts raised objections.

The proposal was floated in late April, when schools nationwide were closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Proponents said changing the start of the school year from April to September would help children, sidelined by the closures, catch up on their schoolwork.

But the Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner, Komeito, decided against the September start, calling it unworkable.

The parties will submit official recommendations to the government as early as next week that a new academic year should not be introduced next year.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga and other government officials are expected to approve the parties’ recommendations as early as June.

Currently, the school year starts in April in Japan. Children born between April 2 and April 1 the following year are grouped into one school grade.

On May 27, Masahiko Shibayama, a former education minister who chairs the LDP’s working team on the issue, told reporters that the team opposes the introduction of a new academic year for this year as well as for 2021.

“Most of the team members agreed that introducing a school year starting from September would not be a good way for students to make up for their lost opportunities to learn,” he said.

But he noted that some members recommended that the LDP continue discussing the issue.

Komeito compiled a report containing a similar recommendation not to change the start of the school year in 2021.

“There is no reason to justify a rough-and-ready move” to switch to a new school year, a draft report obtained by The Asahi Shimbun said.

The party’s draft also said the envisaged shift “would create demerits and additional costs that significantly outweigh the merits.” It cited the need to secure more teachers and an expected labor shortage as a result of graduates joining the workforce several months later than under the current system.

Komeito’s draft report suggested compressing education content and extending the current academic year by two weeks to a month to allow students to catch up on their studies.

The proposed shift to a September start has come up before. Proponents have argued, for example, that having an academic year in sync with those in Europe and North America would make it easier for students to study overseas.

The latest move was fueled by high school students on social media. The switch was initially seen as a potentially viable option because most local governments decided to close schools through the end of May.

But many officials in the Abe administration became more cautious after opposition against the proposal spread in the LDP and Komeito.

“There is nothing to add to the opinion of the ruling parties,” a senior administration official said.

An education ministry official welcomed the coalition parties’ recommendation, saying, “The parties concluded that it is not good to divide and confuse the public.”

The education ministry’s study of several scenarios showed that an array of problems would arise by switching the start of the academic year.

According to the study, the change would increase the number of first-graders next autumn by 1.4 times the figure of an ordinary year. It also said a huge amount of government spending would be needed to implement the September start, and families affected by the change would face an additional financial burden.

(This article was written by Ryo Miyazaki, Takahiro Okubo and Takashi Narazaki.)