Elementary and junior high school students showed improvements in the government's scholastic achievement tests conducted in January and February 2004 from those in 2002, according to the education ministry.
About 210,000 elementary school fifth- and sixth-graders, or about 8 percent of all students in those grades nationwide, and about 240,000 junior high school students, some 8 percent of all junior high students, were tested on Japanese, including composition and dictation of kanji, and mathematics.
Results of the testing by the education ministry show that the percentage of questions answered correctly rose in many of the academic subjects and grades from those of the previous tests in 2002.