Japan: Cities seek to punish parents dodging meal fees

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The Yomiuri Shimbun
Some municipalities have begun taking legal action against parents who are financially able to pay their children's fees for school meals, but chose not to.
In July 2005, a man pulled up in a luxury imported car to a municipal primary school in Utsunomiya and told the principal that he did not have to pay his grandson's school meal fee. The school had contacted the boy's family numerous times because his meal fees had gone unpaid.
"Some mothers who have delayed their payment carry brand-name handbags. They say they'll pay, but the promise is never kept," said a principal of a different primary school in Utsunomiya.
The number of parents not paying fees for school meals at public primary and middle schools began going up in 2002 in Utsunomiya. Total unpaid school meal fees in the city reached 9.3 million yen in fiscal 2005.
At first, the schools patiently asked parents to pay, but after the man in the luxury car visited the school, the city's Board of Education began discussing taking legal action over the problem.
In September, the municipal office filed with the Utsunomiya Summary Court and other organizations to start collection procedures against 40 delinquent parents and guardians. It filed for provisional execution on Nov. 1 on seven who failed to pay even after receiving a court-ordered demand.
"I can't pay because I had to pay for repairs to my car," one guardian who failed to pay for his child's meal told an official at the Kure municipal Board of Education in Hiroshima Prefecture.
Some refuse to pay, saying the meal is part of a child's compulsory education.
In Nemuro, Hokkaido, the cost of unpaid school meals grew from 2.96 million yen in fiscal 2003 to 3.09 million yen in fiscal 2004 and 3.61 million yen in fiscal 2005.
The city's association on school meal fees, which is responsible for fee collection, in July sued three guardians who failed to pay for several years.
Two of the guardians settled their cases by agreeing to pay in installments, but the remaining one, who forfeited the case by failing to appear in court, has yet to pay.
What has brought on the reluctance of parents to pay for their children's meals?
"Economic development brought on a great increase in consumption and has encouraged individuals to indulge their desires. As a result, more and more people only think of themselves and this has lowered the level of discipline and morals in guardians," said Takahiko Furuta, the head of Research Institute for Contemporary Society.