Schools & Education

The parents of a 10-year-old boy were yesterday handed a three months' jail sentence for taking their son out of school.

TOKYO — When Utako Sakai was changing the background music in her beauty parlor recently, she did not opt for the classical piano pieces she usually chose. Instead, she picked her favorite CD: “President Obama’s Inaugural Address,” released by Asahi Press, a Japanese publisher of language books. She says the speech lifts her spirits and helps her to learn English all at once.

Lime Education, which runs an English learning program subsidized by the government's Continuing Education Fund, has been accused of asking students to borrow from a loan company without offering the appropriate education to help them pass the standardized test to get a refund from the government.

It has been announced that 11 of the territory's schools will be closed for a week following new outbreaks of human swine flu. The 11 schools advised to close for a week include eight primary schools and three secondary schools.