The 33rd national exchange meeting was held at Tokyo Korean Senior High School on Feb. 21 under the sponsorship of the Japan-Korea Society for Scientific and Educational Interchange.

Attending it were Japanese concerned with education and those concerned of Korean schools.

Copies of an appeal on behalf of the Central Standing Committee of the Union of Korean Teachers and School Clerks in Japan demanding the "indiscriminate application of tuition-free program" were distributed to the participants of the meeting.

Some government officials and political parties assert that Korean schools should be excluded from "tuition-free program", citing the issue of state relations, the "abduction issue" and the "nuclear issue", the appeal said, branding their assertions as an unreasonable logic feigning ignorance of the historic background against which the issue of Koreans in Japan cropped up, the deserved rights of children of Koreans in Japan and the real state of Korean schools.

Tatao Oishi, secretary general of the Liaison Council of the Society for the Study of the Juche Idea of Japanese Teachers, said in his keynote report at the meeting that the "tuition-free program for senior high schools" should naturally be applied to Korean schools.

The Hatoyama regime has not yet dropped the one-sided pressure and hard-line policy toward the DPRK pursued by the preceding regime, he noted, urging it to rectify the present policy which does not admit the right to national education with no consideration given to the historic background of the issue of Koreans in Japan.

He expressed his will to form "societies for supporting Korean schools" in more areas and conduct sustained activities.

The meeting expressed approval for the said appeal and adopted a resolution.

The resolution underlined the need to conduct the nationwide movement demanding the government and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan take such steps as preferential treatment on donation in taxation system for all schools for foreigners in Japan including Korean schools and "tuition-free program".