In preparation for adopting a five-day school week in 2003, an advisory council to the education minister submitted a midterm report Monday urging fewer mandatory classes in the fundamental subjects to create additional room for general studies that foster humanity, creativity, originality and international awareness.

In its report, the Curriculum Council urges a reduction in classroom hours spent on mandatory subjects in secondary schools and instead urges more emphasis on studies such as foreign languages, social welfare and the environment.

Pointing out that the current curriculum is insufficient in cultivating original research skills and self-expression, the council recommended that educational emphasis be shifted from cramming students with large amounts of knowledge to developing intellectual curiosity, creativity and originality. "We consider the theme (of this report) to be the transfer from passive to active education, from Japanese to international education and from knowledge to knowing education," Shumon Miura, chairman of the advisory panel, said after submitting the report to Education Minister Nobutaka Machimura.

Tasked by the ministry in 1996, the council has been deliberating curricula to be adopted in schools from the 2003 academic year, when schools will discontinue Saturday classes and adopt a five-day week. The ongoing curriculum reform is expected to play a key role in shaping the nation's future educational arena, according to observers.

To meet the new school day system, the council proposed a cut of two credit hours per week at all levels: from 25-29 credits hours per week to 23-27 in elementary schools; from 30 down to 28 in junior high schools; and from 32 to 30 in high schools. The report includes flexible proposals such as allocating more than two credit hours per week to the third grade and higher for "general studies." The program can be used to teach new materials such as international understanding, information technology, environmental issues or social welfare in each school's original teaching methods, it says.

To help students keep up with the internationalizing world, the council also recommended having foreign language lessons in elementary school and making the subject mandatory, instead of elective as it currently is, from the junior high level.

In terms of recommended workload on different subjects, the curriculum revision for third-year students in junior high schools, for instance, results in one less credit hour per week in both Japanese and mathematics -- down from four to three -- and more than two newly added credit hours for "general studies."