Comments on: Money for education ends up in the toilet

By: Noemi Inoue

Noemi Inoue — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 02:42:30 +0000

Hi Philip and Mako… It was great to see you!!! About this article do you have some information or statistics about Sumida City?

By: Miko

Miko — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 22:36:32 +0000

I worked at a nursery school a few years back, and one of our little girls ended up with a urinary tract disorder because of refusing to use the old-style squattie-pottie. Finally we had to ask her mother to come in and demonstrate.

By: Philip Brasor & Masako Tsubuku

Philip Brasor & Masako Tsubuku — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 03:44:08 +0000

Yes, that first statistic represented a percentage increase in spending, not a portion of spending. It has now been corrected.

By: Francois

Francois — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 00:58:12 +0000

I’m having trouble making sense of:

“the average family with a full-time salaried head of household used 5.7 percent of its expenditures for education”

and:

“On average, a household spent ¥1.91 million a year on education, down ¥700,000 from the previous year probably owing to the tuition break. That’s about 37.7 percent of the average family’s yearly income”

Unless a super high percentage of families’ head of household are out of a job or on welfare, or families spend 7 times more than they earn, I don’t see how 5% of expenditure come to 37.7% of yearly income…