Tax Season

For third-year students this time of year means entrance exams, for their parents, taxes.  The artwork shown includes some of the winning entries in a local "tax awareness" poster contest for primary school 6th graders.

Gold: "Taxes are for everyone's happiness."

Silver: "Taxes are one of the pieces in the jigsaw of the future."

                               Bronze: "Taxes are the source of smiling faces."

The favorite of the head of the local tax authority: "Taxes make the town peaceful."

               
These artists (11-12 years old) understand that 1), taxes pay for things such as public schools, parks, infrastructure, police, health care, etc., and 2), the business of government is to provide such things for the common good. This is, simply, civics education at work.   Provides a telling contrast with the US, where voters demand that their representatives order the government keep its hands off Medicare while cheering the defunding of federal programs. 

The Entrance Exam- the Gift That Keeps on Giving

It's almost as though the current entrance exam regime was devised by the for-profit education industry. Does your child aim to enroll in one of the better (in terms of hensachi）public high schools? If so, it's off to the ATM you go, for entrance exam prep offered by the neighborhood middle school is insufficient. You want the cram school professionals for this job.  The good folks at Nokai, a national juku chain, charge between 11,000 and 42,000 yen monthly for jr. high 3rd graders. With many middle school seniors attending cram school from August, some 8 months prior to the public high school entrance exam, families can be set back as much as 10% of a typical salaried worker's annual salary.  Or more than two month's take- home for a parent among the growing ranks of Japan's working poor.