Japanese schools rush to plan response to missile launches

TOKYO: The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry plans to revise its handbook for risk management manuals to add information on how to respond to missile launches and other such situations.

North Korea’s missile launch on Friday, which flew over Japan, occurred when children and students were on their way to school.

One school in Ibaraki Prefecture cancelled classes, and 222 schools in 12 prefectures, including Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, delayed the start of school, according to the ministry.

These decisions are currently left up to the schools or their local boards of education, and the boards are scrambling to come up with standards.

On Sept 7, the board of education of Yuzawa, Akita Prefecture, decided at a meeting of school principals that if the J-Alert nationwide warning system issued a warning at 6.30am or earlier, children and students should wait at home.

If the alert is issued when they are on their way to school, the start of classes would be delayed by one hour.

On Friday, the city’s 17 elementary and junior high schools followed these criteria, delaying the start of classes by one hour.

In Ibaraki Prefecture, the principal and others of Tsuchiura Nihon University Secondary School were already at school when the J-Alert warning was issued. They decided to cancel classes for the day.

Some schools, anticipating a missile could be launched while children are in class, have conducted drills on how to respond. — The Japan News/Asia News Network