Korean school students in Japan who were excluded from a program to make high school education free from fiscal 2025 are keeping up the pressure on the government, which they accuse of discrimination. 

Students from the schools, which are affiliated with the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon), continue staging weekly Friday protests in front of the education ministry building in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward. 

From April, the government will provide up to 118,800 yen ($810) annually to all households with a high school student, regardless of income, effectively making public high schools tuition free.

The system to alleviate the financial burden of households with high schoolers started in 2010. At the time, public high school tuition became free and some financial aid for households with children who attend private high schools also was provided.

However, a total of 10 "Chosen Gakko" North Korea-affiliated schools nationwide have been excluded from the system. They were also excluded this time from the latest financial education assistance.

While some accuse the government of discrimination, others say that the Korean schools should change with the times. 

PUBLIC PROTESTS CONTINUE

On March 7, 110 students from Tokyo Korean Junior and Senior High School assembled for their weekly protest at the education ministry building. 

The students shouted, “We want to take pride in our roots,” “The only place we can learn the Korean language and culture is Korean schools,” and “Apply the system to our school.”

The weekly “Friday action” of these students and their Japanese supporters marked the 560th time since the protests started in May 2013. 

According to the education ministry, because the system intends to “secure education for all students who are willing to study,” schools for foreign students such as Chinese and Brazilian schools have been covered by the system. However, the Korean schools have been excluded.

The exclusion from the tuition-free system started from the Democratic Party-controlled administration in 2010, and in 2013, after the Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, Komeito, regained power, the administration officially announced the exclusion.

“There is no progress in the abduction issue, and the Korean schools have close ties with the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, which supports the North Korean administration,” said Hakubun Shimomura, then education minister.

According to the website of Tokyo Korean Junior and Senior High School and other sources, Korean schools in Japan took root from lecture halls built in some places in Japan after World War II.

The schools were started by Koreans who felt they were deprived of their native language while Japan ruled the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

Because the schools suffer from financial difficulties, North Korean authorities have provided financial assistance to them since the 1950s.

“We hope our students will integrate into Japanese society as Koreans,” Yoon Tae Gil, principal of Tokyo Korean Junior and Senior High School, said of the school’s educational policy.

FOURTH-GENERATION KOREAN STUDENTS

Yoon said that most students of the Tokyo Korean Junior and Senior High School are fourth-generation Koreans living in Japan. Their native language is Japanese, and 30 to 40 percent of them will continue on to attend Japanese universities.

In public, they do not differ from Japanese high school students, in conversing on topics such as Korean TV dramas and dating.

The lessons are basically taught in Korean at the Korean schools. Students learn about the history of the Japanese colonial period, but also math and science are taught in accordance with the Japanese standard school curriculum.

However, students learn about the modern history of North Korea, and in their textbooks, honorific titles are used for important figures such as former President Kim Il Sung. Students also visit North Korea for school graduation trips.

“It may look strange to Japanese, but we can’t keep being separated from ethnicity education and our home country, which supported us during our hardest times,” Yoon said.

The school teaches students that North Korea was wrong to abduct Japanese citizens during the 1970s and 1980s

The tuition of the schools is about 30,000 yen ($206) per month. So, Yoon said there are some families that are forced to give up on having their children attend Korean schools.

According to the education ministry, Korean school students nationwide numbered 802 in 2023, which is about half of the enrollment in 2014. Some people are concerned that Korean schools could disappear.

“We can’t discontinue our school, which is the center of our Korean community,” said an 18-year-old student from Tokyo Korean Junior and Senior High School, who has participated in the Friday protests.

Another participant, who now attends a Japanese private university in Tokyo and used to go to a Korean school, passes out fliers every month calling for realizing tuition-free Korean schools. He wants the school's future secured, which had always affirmed his Korean identity.

But the prolonged exclusion by the Japanese government makes him feel helpless.

A 26-year-old woman who works for a Japanese company after graduating from a Korean school in the Kanto region said, “Unless Japanese society’s evaluation of North Korea changes, Korean schools will not be accepted.”

FAILS IN 5 LAWSUITS NATIONWIDE

Challenging the exclusion of Korean schools from the tuition-free education system, Korean school graduates filed lawsuits in five district courts in Japan between 2013 and 2014.

One court ruled the exclusion was illegal, but all the lawsuits proceeded to the Supreme Court, which ruled against them.

The courts determined that the Korean schools were affiliated with the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan and that they teach students to regard North Korean leaders as absolute figures, which is prohibited as “improper control” under the Basic Education Law.

Journalist Jiro Ishimaru, 62, who has covered North Korea for more than 30 years, criticized the exclusion of Korean schools from the tuition-free system.

“It is a sanction against North Korea mainly because of the abduction issue,” he said. “Children who are not directly involved in the issue are burdened with the issue and it is discrimination.”

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination of the United Nations issued an advisory to the Japanese government not to discriminate against Korean schools.

Meanwhile, Ishimaru points out that teaching at the Korean schools advocates for the continuation of the North Korean dictatorship. He believes that this educational philosophy is also the reason for the decreasing number of students at Korean schools.

“Korean schools and the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan should discuss this with a wide range of Koreans, including those who are living apart from Korean communities in Japan,” he said.