Recently, my daughter contracted lice from the environment
of an extremely unclean Japanese school! As an unsuspecting and
concerned parent, I am both shocked and disturbed by this incident,
and by the obvious health risks such conditions pose to the children
of this school.
I came to Japan from Russia with my family to study for my PhD,
whereupon I entered my child into a Japanese nursery school. One day
she returned home with lice in her hair. How was it possible for
such a dirty accident to have happened in a wealthy and respected
country like Japan?
As nursery schools are responsible for the health of our children,
they really ought to have the highest of standards for cleanliness.
One can well imagine the astonishment I felt over witnessing the irresponsibility
of these events.
To my knowledge, such a thing could never happen in a nursery school
in my own country. In Russia, we are very sensitive about this issue.
We have highly-developed and thorough procedures to ensure the presence
of proper hygiene and sanitation based on the most current science
of that field. We are very much proud of our cleanliness in public facilities.
I was appalled at my child`s misfortune, so I immediately complained
to the director of the nursery school. I expected due consideration
and understanding, but instead I received only trite indifference.
I was merely told that the lice might disappear soon if I were to comb
my daughter`s hair and wash it.
This so-called solution was insensitive to the principle of the issue,
and was an insult to my intelligence. At first I felt embarrassed by the lack of
consolation offered by those responsible, but soon I felt so angry that
I decided to promptly remove my child from that school.
To date, this issue remains regretfully unresolved, much to my disdain.
Why don't other Japanese parents react more forcefully to correct this
terrible incident, and prevent such a thing from happening in the future?
Furthermore, why doesn`t the Japanese government do anything about this?
Is the government even aware that such problems exist?
I find this whole situation utterly unacceptable, and I can only hope
that steps will soon be taken to ensure that this will not happen again.

Russian A

English rewriting：　Francoise Coppe 平成17年3月6日(日)