For a child who struggles to attend school, simply leaving home in the morning can feel like a very heavy task.
That does not mean the desire to learn disappears. Some children can concentrate and show their strengths when the place, pace, or human relationships around learning change.
In the 2024 school year, the number of elementary and middle school students classified as futoko (non-attending) reached 353,970 — a record high for the twelfth consecutive year, according to figures published by Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in October 2025. That is roughly one in every thirty schoolchildren.
When so many children cannot fit comfortably into school as it is currently designed, we need to rethink the rigid, one-size-fits-all model of compulsory education.
Digital education is increasingly recognised as a compelling answer. ICT-based learning environments do not merely replicate the classroom online — they remove the very features that make traditional schooling inaccessible for many non-attending children. There are three core reasons why digital education is especially well matched to their needs.
1. Learning at Their Own Pace
Whole-class instruction assumes every student absorbs material at the same speed. In reality, the reasons behind school non-attendance vary enormously: anxiety about academic gaps, interpersonal stress, neurodevelopmental differences, or simply the exhaustion of performing "normalcy" in a crowded room for six hours a day.
Digital learning content lets children move entirely at their own pace. Concepts they grasp quickly can be advanced without waiting; material they struggle with can be repeated without embarrassment. There are no bells, no fixed timetables, no pressure to keep up. For a child who finds mornings unbearable or crowds overwhelming, the freedom to learn at 10 p.m. in their own room is not a compromise — it is an enabling condition.
2. Connection Without the Classroom
When children stop attending school, they often lose not just their learning environment but their social world simultaneously. This isolation can compound the original reasons for non-attendance, making re-engagement feel even harder.
Online learning communities and digital free schools offer a different kind of social contact — one with a lower threshold of entry. Text-based chat without video, collaborative programming projects, or game-based teamwork all allow children to connect and contribute without the face-to-face performance anxiety that the physical classroom can impose. Multiple cases have been documented in Japan of severely homebound children finding their way back to peer interaction through exactly these kinds of low-pressure digital spaces.
3. Official Attendance Recognition — a Policy Tailwind
Since 2005, MEXT has allowed ICT-based home learning to count as official school attendance under specified conditions. As GIGA School devices became standard issue in classrooms, the scope of that policy has expanded. Learning outcomes from home-based online classes and digital educational materials can now be formally reflected in a student's attendance record and academic evaluation.
The Device Gap — a Challenge That Cannot Be Ignored
None of the above is accessible to a child without a computer or reliable internet at home. Families experiencing school non-attendance are disproportionately likely to be dealing with economic hardship as well. If device access becomes the dividing line between children who can learn and children who cannot, we risk institutionalising a new layer of inequality beneath the one we set out to solve.
At Digital Kodomo BASE, we provide refurbished computers free of charge to children who lack a home device, and we keep our learning space in Ota Ward open for any child to drop in and use freely. The goal is simple: no child — whether they attend school or not — should have to give up on learning. Digital education has the power to make that possible, and we are committed to putting that power within reach of every child who needs it.