The education ministry reported last month that high school English-proficiency scores fell far short of its goals. That report will come as no surprise to most people in Japan, but it is additional evidence that the English education system in Japan is still in desperate need of reform.

The test carried out last summer at 480 randomly selected public high schools found that third-year high school students' English skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing were far below government targets. In each section, a majority of students scored at or below the equivalent of Grade 3 on the Eiken Test in Practical English Proficiency. The results were much lower than the government's hope of having 50 percent of high school graduates scoring at Eiken Grade 2 or pre-2, the levels above Grade 3.

Students' English proficiency was especially low on the more active, productive skills of speaking and writing. On the exam, 29.2 percent of students scored zero on the writing section and 13.3 percent also scored zero on the speaking portion. That is even more disappointing considering that only 20 percent of students even took the speaking portion at all. It is doubtful that the other 80 percent of students would have performed any better.