TOKYO: The Japanese government at a cabinet meeting Friday adopted new guidelines to tackle child poverty, aiming to, among other things, beef up measures to help children with problems keep attending school and support re-enrollment of dropouts.

The government also hopes to prevent parents' poverty from affecting their children and create a society where all children can have hopes and dreams.

In the updated version of the previous 2014 guidelines, the government emphasized the importance of helping high school girls who become pregnant and give birth keep attending school, saying that parties concerned should be thoroughly informed of the need to give such students consideration deemed necessary on the educational front while placing the highest priority on protecting their health.

To help dropouts return to school or start working, the guidelines call on schools to provide them with information on regional youth support centers and Hello Work public job placement offices.

The government also plans to establish a system in which related organizations will cooperate to identify economic difficulties and other poverty-related problems at households during the period spanning from the mothers' pregnancy and the children's high school days, and to provide them with seamless support.

To more accurately measure the level of child poverty, the government added new indicators, including "experience of being unable to buy food or clothes" and "unpaid utility bills."

JIJI Press