School money: the national average, and what Ota and Suginami print

Public elementary school in Japan is not a tuition bill. Parents still spend money around school, and the school still sends collection slips (学校徴収金, gakkō chōshūkin) for particular items. The latest national picture is the Ministry of Education's survey of the 2023 school year (令和5年度), in a points paper dated 16 January 2026. The figures are the average a parent spent in a year for one child. They are the average of that year, so a 2026 slip can differ, and a ward that pays for lunch will differ on purpose.

One public elementary child, one year

	Public elementary	Private elementary
Total learning expenses	¥366,599	¥1,741,516
Of which school education	¥74,336	¥978,271
Of which school lunch	¥35,774	¥53,578
Of which activities outside school	¥256,489	¥709,667

Inside the public elementary school-education figure of ¥74,336, the paper's breakdown is:

What parents spent it on	Yen	Share
Books, stationery, experiment and practical materials	26,860	36.1%
Getting to school (fares, uniform, randoseru and similar)	21,718	29.2%
Payments to the school (class fees, PTA dues and the like)	9,533	12.8%
Trips, visits, overnight stays	6,718	9.0%
Other	5,827	7.8%
Clubs, sports day, camps and similar	3,154	4.2%
Entrance-related payments	526	0.7%

The largest piece of the whole ¥366,599 is outside school (¥256,489). The paper says that, at both public and private elementary schools, the largest part of that outside spending is supplementary study (補助学習費): study at home, juku and tutors. In public schools, that supplementary share overtakes the other outside activities from grade 6. The same paper's highest outside-school year in public schools is grade 3 of junior high, about ¥446,000. A family in grades 1–3 is still on the earlier part of that curve.

For a public junior high the same survey's year is ¥542,450 in total (school education ¥150,761, lunch ¥35,671, outside school ¥356,018). Getting to school is the largest school-education line there (¥44,081).

A private elementary year's school-education spending is ¥978,271, and tuition is the largest line inside it (¥510,823). That is a different bill from a ward school.

At Ota ward: lunch, and help with the rest

Ota's FY2026 education overview says staffing, buildings and utilities for lunch are public money, and the ingredients were the parents' share. From the June 2023 portion the ward pays that share in full, and it is paying it again from April 2026 through March 2027 (令和５年６月分から区が全額補助し無償化とした。令和８年４月分から令和９年３月分についても無償化を実施している。). The overview still prints the ingredient rates revised on 1 April 2017, which are the rates underneath the subsidy: grades 1–2 ¥4,100 a month (¥235 a meal), grades 3–4 ¥4,500 (¥255), grades 5–6 ¥4,950 (¥280), junior high ¥5,350 (¥320). The planned number of lunch days is 193 in elementary school and 184 in junior high. At an Ota ward school, during the months the overview calls free, the family does not pay those rates.

School-expense aid (就学援助, shūgaku enjo) goes to guardians who live in Ota, whose child attends elementary or junior high, and whose income is under the ward's line. The overview says "under a set income" and does not print the line or the deadline. In FY2025 the ward certified 6,154 children (3,924 elementary, 2,230 junior high), counting children who moved out of Ota during that year. Life-support education aid, where a family already receives it, replaces the overlapping items.

For ward-school children the FY2026 table pays the amounts in parentheses for supplies and lunch. Lunch in parentheses is ¥0, which matches the free lunch. Grades 1–3 at a ward elementary school:

Grade	New-enrollment goods	Supplies (ward school)	Lessons off site	Total the table shows for a ward school
1	¥57,060	¥11,860	¥1,050	¥69,970
2	—	¥15,650	¥1,050	¥16,700
3	—	¥15,650	¥1,050	¥16,700

The same table's lunch and supplies figures without parentheses are higher (grade 1 supplies ¥15,690 and lunch ¥45,100). The note says ward-school children receive the parenthetical amounts for those two items. Club costs start in the table at grade 4. Overnight trips, the school trip and the graduation album are caps, not a promise the ward will spend the cap. The overview also names PE practical costs, commute costs for special-class children only, and medical costs, and it says a separate price-rise amount is added to the lunch aid. It does not print yen for those extras in the grade rows.

At Suginami: who collects

Suginami's education committee, on 24 September 2024, described school collections as a mix: club costs that only some children pay, materials that differ by school, and some purchases a parent can make straight from the shop. Lunch was already free for children, so the only lunch payments left were from staff. The paper's schedule, marked as a plan, names April 2025 as the month lunch moves onto the ward's public accounts, and leaves the other collections for a later decision. A collection slip can still arrive for a trip, a material, or a club. Read who is charging and who must pay.

What to do now

• Keep each collection slip. It is the amount and the method for that item. The national table is an average, so a slip of a few hundred yen, or a trip deposit, can both be normal.
• If lunch is still on a slip, check whether your ward has a free-lunch decision. Ota's overview is explicit for Ota only.
• If money is tight, ask Ota's board, or your own ward, about 就学援助. Ota's overview does not print the income line; the ward does that on the application.
• A PTA line inside the national "payments to the school" average is ¥9,533 for everything in that basket, not a PTA invoice. Your slip names the PTA amount if there is one.