Photo/Illutration Teachers at an elementary school in Kumamoto demonstrate the use of a telepresence robot on Dec. 12 that supports chronically absent children. (Minako Yoshimoto)

KUMAMOTO--Students who struggle with chronic absenteeism can now remotely pilot a robot body that will attend classes in their place, allowing them to stay connected and engaged with school life while staying at home.

Teachers at Honjo Elementary School here demonstrated on Dec. 12 how to use a U.S.-made Temi telepresence robot.

Equipped with a camera, speaker, microphone and touchscreen, the robot can be controlled by a child from home through a smartphone app.

The child’s image will appear on the screen atop the 1-meter-tall wheeled robot, allowing the physically absent child to interact with other students in the classroom.

“I hope seeing friends on the screen makes students with attendance issues want to stay engaged,” said head teacher Hideomi Nishikawa.

Honjo Elementary School has a special online learning program for students who experience long-term absences.

Funded by a government subsidy, the municipality has deployed two Temi robots, one in Honjo Elementary School and the other in a junior high school, for a student who can’t fully attend classes due to illness.

In the academic year through March 2023, a record 299,048 elementary and junior high school students in Japan were chronically absent from school, an increase of 22.1 percent from the previous year, according to the education ministry.

That figure represents children who missed school for reasons including social, psychological and emotional issues. Chronically ill students were not included.

Although robots have been used as remote learning aids for chronically ill children, few schools have tried using them to support students who miss school for other reasons, such as anxiety and depression.

(This article was written by Kikuma Morikita and Maho Fukui.)

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