The education ministry is set lay out new school curriculum guidelines that for the first time urge elementary and junior high schools to teach students that the disputed Senkaku Islands and Takeshima islets are "integral parts of Japanese territory," a draft revision released Tuesday said.
The changes in the legally binding guidelines follow the ministry's revision of nonbinding manuals for junior high school teachers in 2014 that urged instructors to teach that the two island groups are Japanese territory.
The new guidelines, revised about once every decade, will be fully implemented in elementary schools in the 2020 academic year starting that April and in junior high schools a year later.