Exactly,Shiai.And I don’t disagree with you in any sense.
Thing is,some Brazillian parents do exactly that.
Because a)They didn’t “plan” to stay in Japan that long.But end up staying here.
b)The divorce rate of Brazillian workers are pretty high,because usually the case is
both husband and wife have jobs but not stable jobs.
So they have to move to where the jobs are,and in many cases they live separately.
Eventually leads to break up of the relations.And the kids are the most who suffers.
c)There are lots of kids like above in Shizuoka,Aichi,Gunnma and Nagano.And usually
making some groups to hung around during supposed to be school hours.
That attracts potentially drop-outs.

The reason Japanese government cannot enforce foreign citizens to go to Japanese schools is that many zainichi Koreans have been against receiving compulsory education in Japanese schools. Although a lot of zainichi children go to Japanese schools these days, many parents stil want to educate their children in Korean schools. For them, compulsory education in Japanese schools is nothing but forced assimilation for erasing their racial identity.

What makes the issue complicated is that, since Korean schools have not allowed Japanese government to inspect their curricurum, Japanese government cannot recognize the Korean schools as schools that are equivalent to Japanese schools. So children who graduated Korean schools cannot be officially recognized as those who received compulsory education. In case of other international shools such as American shools, they allow Japanese government to inspect their curricurum. So graduates of those shools are officially regarded as those who received compulsory education.

If Japanese government enforced foregin children to receive compulsory education, it would also have to enforce Korean children to receive the one, otherwise some Korean would complain about the situation regarding it as discrimination against Koreans. However, as noted above, many other Koreans are against receiving compulsory education in Japanese schools. They would complain about the situation regarding it as forced assimilation.

If Korean schools allowed Japanese government to inspect their curricurum, the problem would be easily solved. However, it seems to be difficult for them to allow Japanese government to inspect their curricurum.

Chongryon’s Website (www.chongryon.com/j/edu/index6.html) describes the Korean school’s position (in Japanese).

http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/kokusai/kouryu/05093001/003_7.htm

It seems that while it is not mandatory for children of foreign nationality to attend school, they can if they wish, and it will be free of charge. I don’t know how this compares to other countries. Maybe this stance may be considered “passive”. However, making it mandatory may be a problem, as there are many foreign nationals who don’t want their children to go to Japanese schools.

Why not? What’s stopping them? The GOJ is usually pretty good at forcing foreigners to do other things. Or don’t they actually want them to?

The parents are not flaunting the law,for they are not Japanese national.And GoJ has no way to enforce foreign citizens to goto Japanese school.

The whole idea is that the kids probably won’t learn a word of Japanese if their parents wouldn’t learn by themselves.Period.

But then again the statemen above is coming from komura,Minister of Foreign affaris,not Educational minister nor Minister of Justice,Minister of health,labour and welfare.Naturally Komura’s statement became pretty vaugue statement.

The thing is, Komura said those “staying” in Japan, not those “residing.”

The BBC article said he referred to “long-term visitor(s)”. Do you have a link where he said the other? Not challenging you, just want to know. Japanese is fine.