Lead
For many parents, the first time they start thinking about quality — rather than just availability — is when their child comes home with a look on their face they cannot quite read.
Japan's registered after-school care enrollment exceeded 1.56 million children in 2023, an all-time high [1]. Alongside that quantitative expansion, "quality" has become a question both in policy and in family decision-making. But the standards for evaluating what quality in after-school care actually looks like are not well communicated to parents.