The alleged manipulation of entrance exam scores at Tokyo Medical University to limit the number of successful female applicants, if true, is an unacceptable act by an educational institution. It is even more disturbing that the test scores were reportedly tampered with for years to keep successful female applicants to around 30 percent of the total each year — so as to avert a future shortage of doctors at the university's affiliated hospitals because female doctors tend to quit or take long leaves of absence due to marriage or childbirth. The scandal should shed light on the work environment at medical institutions where female doctors are said to find it difficult to continue their careers.
Tokyo Medical University recently had come under fire over the alleged bribe of a high-ranking education ministry bureaucrat by the university's top officials, who wanted his help in getting the institution selected as a recipient of the government's research subsidy program. In return, they boosted the entrance exam scores of the bureaucrat's son this spring. The reported manipulation of the entrance exams for female applicants is said to have come to light during a lawyer's probe into the bribery case.
According to media reports of the latest case, Tokyo Medical University had been deducting points from the scores of the first-stage entrance exams of all female applicants to its medical school since around 2010 to reduce the number of female applicants who could proceed to the second stage.