That an unspecified number of universities were suspected of discriminating against female applicants and those taking the entrance exam multiple times for their medical schools — in an education ministry probe triggered by malpractice revealed earlier this year at Tokyo Medical University — points to the depth and breadth of a problem that not only undermines equality in education opportunities but highlights the workplace woes that women face as doctors. The ministry should get to the bottom of the problem through further probes, and operators of the universities need to reflect on whether they engaged in such improper conduct.
The manipulation of entrance exam scores at Tokyo Medical University, which was reportedly going on for years, came to light in a probe triggered by the arrest of a former senior education ministry official in a suspected bribery involving the university. The official allegedly provided favors to the university in relation to the government's research subsidy program, and in return his son's scores in last spring's entrance exam for the university's medical school were padded to enable his admission. In the in-house probe by lawyers, it was found out that the university systematically deducted points from the exam scores of female applicants for years to restrict their numbers in its medical school.
The reported logic behind the malpractice — that the university wanted to avoid a future shortage of doctors at its affiliated hospitals because female doctors tend to quit early or take extended leaves after having children — was unacceptable but shed light on what had been widely rumored: that other universities with medical schools have similarly discriminated against female applicants in their entrance exams for the same reason.