High School Entrance Pt. 2

Part one is only a few posts ago, but here is link in case of unbeknownst circumstances: Part 1.

So, back on February 9th, High Schools in Japan had Interview Examinations. If you can recall what this entails: Basically when I go to my base school tomorrow, I expect to locate a list of 64 students who are happy-campers. 64 Students who are in. The last 96 students that will get to attend the high school I teach at will be decided by a written test on March 9th.

According to the information I had at the time, the students that neither pass the interview portion nor the written portion are doomed to a private school. I now have more information, about 1.) another chance, which I was unaware of , and 2.) what this "private" school business is all about.

There is a 2nd set of written exams in late March!!! Prefectural (public) schools that do not fill their student quota have a second written test. Like I said before, the incoming 1st years at my school will number exactly 160. Other schools have their own exact number. If a certain school doesn't fill up, then they advertise another chance. The newspaper publishes a list of all schools that were not filled, and thus will offer a 2nd test. By the way, this test costs 2100 yen (about $25). This is the student's last chance to enter a prefectural school, before either going private, or dropping out.

The thing is, that any "good school" is pretty much going to be filled up, and will not offer a 2nd test. My two O-sensei's that were asking around the teacher's room could only think of 2 or 3 high schools in the area that would probably offer a 2nd chance written test. That's not many, because as a general rule, high schools here are much smaller than American High Schools. So if a student doesn't want to go to one of these bottom of the barrel 2 or 3 schools?

There is the private school option. There are 3 private schools in my area, but they can take as many students as they want. Again, I want to emphasize that this is typical for rural areas only. Private schools in other areas of Japan will be very different.

The test to enter a private high school here is 12,000yen. Remember it was 2,100 for the prefectural schools. So, 12,000 yen and you are basically in. Then, what is the cost of the private school? Public schools are free... (although they only because free within the past 2 years!)

Nakamura (private) High School is 34,000 yen per month. Takagawa (private) High School advertises being 22,000 yen per month. But there is a 6,000 yen materials fee per month, and a 3,500 air conditioning fee. Well. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'd pay 3,500 yen a month to have some heating and air conditioning up in the prefectural schools I work at. hehe. (hey, there's something you might not have known, if you're not in Japan. Learning and teaching can be VERY COLD or VERY HOT depending on time of year). Anyways, Takagawa's monthly grand total is 31,500 yen. So two of the only private high schools in the area cost $407, and $377 a month, respectively.

Private schools in the area can be much better than those last choice prefectural schools though, so parents will try to fork out the money if they can, when those poor students who didn't get into the high school of their choice see April (the beginning of the school year) approaching.

I want to thank S-sensei (base school), O-sensei/O-sensei#2 (special needs school), and Y-sensei (technical school) for all their time and effort in answering my questions. And again, feel free to ask more: but make them pointed questions that I can get simple/concrete answers to. I'm not going to write any more long posts on this matter :)