The report that high school English-proficiency scores have fallen far short of government goals is additional evidence that the English education system in Japan is still in desperate need of reform.
More University of Tokyo graduates with high academic records appear headed these days for graduate law schools or are taking jobs in the private sector rather than joining the Japanese bureaucracy.
Teachers in Japan, as in the U.S., may find themselves without legal cover if they choose to use supplementary classroom materials that they've picked out themselves.
For the first time in 40 years, the education ministry has advised teachers to be careful about using "inappropriate" supplementary materials in the classroom.
At least 11 prefectures and three cities have banned middle and high school teachers from all communication with students by email, messaging apps or phone after local boards of education found that 205 teachers instigated obscene acts with students in 2013.
It's not uncommon for teachers in Japan to teach a subject well enough but for their stale techniques to teach students to hate the subject for life. That's why it's so important for Japan to move away from its obsession with testing.
Law schools in Japan and the U.S. find themselves trapped between a rock and a hard place as the number of applicants continues to shrink in the face of a bleak legal job market.
Before Japan's Central Council for Education undertakes the formidable task of revising Japan's university entrance exam, it needs to understand why such exams, both here and in the U.S., fail to make the grade.
Japan's Finance Ministry has asked the education ministry to increase the number of grade school students per class, reversing a decision from 2011 to reduce class size.
The central government has announced additional funding for 37 leading public and private universities as a way to increase their global ranking and competitiveness. No mention was made of the other 67 schools that applied.
An advisory body to Japan's education minister calls for upgrading grade school "moral education" — which deals with children's way of thinking and their attitude toward life — to an official subject on a par with mathematics and science.
Bullying and violence increased in Japanese schools, particularly for younger students, in fiscal 2013, although better reporting of incidents explains some of the increase over the previous year.
