JAPAN

School's out in much of the world, but Japanese teachers are happy to return

Sachika Sato, a teacher at Funabori Elementary School in Tokyo's Edogawa Ward, teaches her class of 33 fifth graders. Sato says the pandemic has fundamentally changed the way she runs her classes, with any group activity among students discouraged to minimize infection risks. | TOMOHIRO OSAKI

By Tomohiro Osaki
Staff writer

Apr 5, 2021

This is the last in a two-part series on how the nation’s schools continued their in-person classes amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

While many schools overseas only recently returned to full-time in-person classes, or are still struggling to reopen, in Japan it’s been nearly a full year since elementary, middle and high schools welcomed back their pupils.

This week, with the start of the new academic year, schools in Japan are bracing for the continuation of a raft of restrictions, rules and compromises they have been coming to grips with over the past year as they sought to coexist with the COVID-19 pandemic.