The Education Ministry plans to initiate a nationwide pilot program from fiscal 2001 in which schoolchildren will participate in short-term volunteer activities, ministry sources said Saturday.
Under the program -- to be introduced in designated districts in each of the nation's 3,229 municipalities -- selected students will participate in social service activities such as caring for the aged and cleaning streets and parks in their towns while living together at public facilities, the sources said.
Some 50 students in each designated district will join the program during the summer vacation or in other extended school holidays.