Japanese School Vaccination Requirements

Hi,
As I understand, there is no government vaccine mandate for children, but there are strong recommendations.

However, if a child has been partially vaccinated, or not vaccinated at all, will they be denied entry into any public school?

I know Japanese schools require information about vaccinations (as do most countries), but do they MANDATE having the vaccines, or rather stick with it being a strong recommendation?

Thanks

Japan is a society that works on gstrong recommendationsh. Eg, I believe there was never a law in Japan that mandated restaurants and other places to shut from a certain time during the pandemic, but there was a gstrong recommendation g which resulted in that everything was closed as the government requested. I remember at the very beginning of the pandemic the city government of Osaka grequestedh that all pachinko parlors close. A few didnft want to follow suit immediately and were publicly shamed by the governor and closed then pretty quickly. All other companies saw that and were very obliging with government requests.

So please understand a gstrong recommendation g like it would be law in your country.

in Japan, young children MUST go to school. it is a law. you can't choose other options like that you make your child delay one year to enter school. even if your child can't understand the language, still your child must go.
therefore, this law is stronger than "recommendation".
school will not deny pupil's entrance, because of no vaccination.

Non-Japanese children residing in Japan can attend Japanese public schools if they (or the parents) want to. You need to inform the city authorities that you want to send your child to a local school. (If the parents decide to send their children to international schools, that is fine too, so there is no gmandateh to send your child to a Japanese local school.)

One of my non-Japanese friendsf child is in a local elementary school, but as far as I know they have not been vaccinated (due to parentsf concern for their health) - and i know many Japanese parents in Japan do worry about the possible negative impact to their health. And (i know this because i help the parents fill out forms for school) they have not been even asked if their child has been vaccinated.

So it is up to the parents, and so far there has not been any mandate issued, at least at that particular public school in Tokyo (that means it is very likely that the same applies to all public elementary schools in Tokyo).

Oh, when you say gvaccination,h i was thinking of the COVID vaccinations, by the way.

Thanks for the comments so far.

Yes, I'm not referring to Covid vaccines in particular, just normal childhood "routine" vaccines.

My children are both under 6 and speak Japanese well and are Japanese citizens.

As for it being a legal requirement - ok, nice to know!

All in all, am I correct that the consensus on this is that kids wont be FORCED to have "routine" vaccines when joining a school or denied entry?

Out of interest, which country are you coming from?

Canada - I'm Canadian. My wife is Japanese, obviously. :)

We are still weighing pros and cons,

Two major cons is potential bullying of my kids in public school in Japan due to being a mix and widespread masking

Two major pros is that we can be next to her side of the family in Japan (we are living alone in Canada) and that we can afford a house way easier than Canada.

Conan,

If you mean other groutineh vaccinations, then i do remember that the parents i have been helping were asked at the time of health check-up before starting elementary school whether the child has been vaccinated for this and that. But this was in no means gmandatory,h just grecommendedh generally, so done routinely in Japanese schools.

Interesting, we're weighing up the exact same pros and cons (except we're considering the move from England). Also as far as we've gathered childhood vaccinations are recommended but not madatory and schools likely won't pry too deeply into it.

Thanks for weighing in, AK. Wonderful.

John - that is an interesting coincidence :) Does England have similar real estate price issues as Canada?

I've heard conflicting things on the bullying / racism in schools. Some say they have barely felt it, others say they left the country because their kids were getting bullied (though most of the time it was from decades ago, where the Japanese society may have been a bit different).

As for wide-spread masking, I don't mind masking when there is a new dangerous virus - most countries did it. However it didn't last. In Japan from what I'm gathering it is like people are happy to forever live in a mask and never see another "nude" human's face, without even questioning it. Neither I neither do my wife do not want to feel like we're living in a hospital years down the road. I hope I'm wrong about this :)

in Japan, young children MUST go to school. it is a law.

Forgive me to be off-topic, but, no, it is not the law to "go to school". The law states that children age 6-15 must be educated, but the education does not have to be done inside a designated school premises. And, yes, a child can delay a year if there is a good reason.

I've heard conflicting things on the bullying / racism in schools.

Of course you have. Do all school children in your country suffer bullying? Do no school children in your country suffer bullying? I think not.

for public schools
even if you children does not vaccinated, they never say "No" for entry to schools.
the reason is simple. education and child heath care are independent.
education of young children is extremely important, although vaccinations can be done afterward.
no one can rewind time. time is more important for children.
in that sense, almost no parents delay the time to enter elementary school, except that a child is physically impossible to go.

but, in the case of private schools, if not vaccinated,
they may say "no" for entering your child to their school.
the reason, I guess, is that they are testing the parents' thought to eliminate problematic parents from their schools.
for example, you have extreme thoughts for education, vaccination, etc.

I agree with ken's latest post as far as children age 6-15 are concerned.

Appreciate you sharing all this!

Hey Conan, did you make any decision regarding moving to Japan? Your situation and thinking was very similar to ours. I was interested if you where you got up to.