The Tokyo metropolitan government has approved a community-service requirement for high school students.
Japanese officials hope to implement the program in the 2007 academic year, after putting it through a trial run in 20 of the city’s approximately 200 high schools this year, according to the government’s Web site.
Students will eventually be required to spend 35 hours each year fulfilling the community-service mandate, and individual schools will be given leeway in determining the activities to comply, Japanese news reports said. Members of the Tokyo board of education believe the requirement will encourage students to understand the benefits of helping the community and think about their own eventual careers, according to The Japan Times, an English-language newspaper.
