PTA at Crossroads: Volunteer Group Must Be Managed in a Way to Suit the Current Era

Editorial

14:59 JST, November 9, 2024

Due to the increase of two-worker households and single-parent families, parent-teacher associations (PTAs) at schools are being forced to review their activities. They should be reorganized to suit the times through simplifying and streamlining.

PTAs are voluntary organizations made up of students’ parents or guardians and teaching staff. After the end of World War II, the General Headquarters, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (GHQ) encouraged the establishment of PTAs to democratize education, and the associations were established across the nation.

Although there has never been an obligation to join a PTA, all parents had participated and paid membership fees to keep the associations running. Parents who are elected as officers tend to be self-employed people or full-time homemakers. They are responsible for helping out at school events, organizing bazaars and cleaning up local areas.

However, in recent years, as more parents have come to hold jobs, there have been many cases of parents pressing each other to be elected as PTA officers, and even of PTA officers reluctantly being chosen by lottery. As it has become widely known that joining a PTA is not compulsory, the number of parents and guardians who opt out is increasing.

If the organizational structure and duties of PTAs are not reviewed, further decline is inevitable.

The function of the PTA, which supports the growth of children in cooperation with teachers while sharing information, will probably continue to be important. However, there are also reportedly cases in which PTAs are tasked with jobs that should be done by schools or local governments, such as washing classroom curtains.

For streamlining, there is a need to distinguish between activities that are necessary to continue and those that can be scaled down or abolished. There is a strong resistance to PTA meetings that are held frequently. Sometimes they are held after school on weekdays, which makes it difficult for working people to attend.

It is important to try to reduce the burden through such measures as moving meetings online or sending administrative messages by group email.

In some elementary and junior high schools in the city of Kawanishi, Hyogo Prefecture, PTAs have been dissolved and replaced with volunteer organizations that charge no membership fees and recruit participants for activities on an ad hoc basis. There is also a growing trend to outsource activities such as newsletter production to private companies.

With such cases as references, PTA models that suit local circumstances should be explored. It is desirable to come up with organizations that would encourage people to participate at their own initiative by considering what is needed for children, instead of forcing them to participate reluctantly.

The National Congress of Parents and Teachers Association of Japan, the nationwide federation of PTAs, has seen withdrawals of the Tokyo elementary school organization and the organizations of the cities of Chiba and Saitama. The Okayama Prefecture organization has said it will dissolve at the end of the fiscal year.

The congress has been involved in a scandal in which dubious accounting in connection with repairing its building was discovered, leading to the arrest of a former senior official of the congress.

The reason for the succession of withdrawals of subordinate organizations from the congress is that it is becoming more difficult to pay membership fees to the congress due to the decline in PTA activities, as well as a lack of trust in the congress’ management. Unless the national body improves the transparency of its accounting, the trend of withdrawals will likely accelerate further.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Nov. 9, 2024)