TV fee leaves schools strapped for cash cash NHK (467).

The government's broadcast network has left Kansai-area schools facing a financial jam by demanding that they pay millions of yen in television licensing fees.

The cash-strapped schools have sought relief -- having no budget allocations for the fees that they were exempt from paying before this year-- but the Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) has turned a deaf ear to their pleas.

Education officials across the region are bewildered as to how they're going to be able to pay the fees for televisions placed in school staff rooms.

"We still haven't decided how we're going to pay the bills," says an official from the Osaka Municipal Government, the …