Japan education ministry wraps up screening textbooks under new guidelines
The education ministry said Tuesday it had completed its first screening of new textbooks under revised teaching guidelines that are planned to be fully implemented from April 2021, approving 106 textbooks in 10 subjects. The average number of pages for a batch of textbooks approved ...
Education chief Koichi Hagiuda says school closures won't be extended
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government will not extend its current request for school closures across Japan, and will allow classes to begin as scheduled in the new academic year.
Japan-wide academic achievement test canceled as coronavirus spreads
Education minister Koichi Hagiuda said Tuesday the nationwide academic achievement test that was set for April 16 will not be held, following mass school closures in response to the new coronavirus epidemic. Hagiuda suggested at a news conference that the education ministry will consider whether ...
Almost 99% of Japan's public elementary schools shut as COVID-19 spreads
In line with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's request last week that schools nationwide close their doors following the COVID-19 virus outbreak, 98.8 percent of all municipally run elementary schools have started extraordinary breaks, education ministry data has shown. Of the 19,161 such elementary schools nationwide, ...
Some areas short of Japanese-language teachers for foreign youth
Some areas in Japan are struggling to secure enough public school staff to teach Japanese to children with foreign roots, amid a recent surge in the number of such students in the country, a Kyodo News survey showed Wednesday. The city of Yokohama, Saitama Prefecture ...
Avatar robot allows Hiroshima students to attend classes from hospital beds
The education board in Hiroshima Prefecture has pioneered the use of a pint-sized "surrogate robot" to realize what was previously considered impossible: allowing hospitalized students to take classes remotely without being monitored by teachers. The success of the board's tech-savvy initiative, considered an educational first ...
Open-ended questions for Japan's new university entrance exams scrapped
The government Tuesday decided against adding open-ended questions for Japanese and math to the country's new standardized university entrance exams due to start January 2021. Education minister Koichi Hagiuda said issues such as the potential for errors to be made by private-sector graders, which includes ...
Ex-senior Japanese education ministry official given suspended term for corruption
A former senior education ministry official was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for three years, on Wednesday for receiving bribes from a former consulting firm executive. The Tokyo District Court also gave Kazuaki Kawabata, 58, former director general for international affairs at the ...
Japan to go ahead with using descriptive questions in university entrance exams from 2020
Japan will carry out plans to introduce descriptive questions for Japanese and mathematics subjects under a new unified university entrance examination system starting in fiscal 2020, education minister Koichi Hagiuda said. "We will work to create a good exam that is easy to score," Hagiuda ...
Abe vows level playing field for students taking English tests for Japan university entrance
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Wednesday the government will consider measures to address inequalities in opportunities for students taking private-sector English tests under a planned unified university entrance examination system. At a House of Representatives Budget Committee meeting, Abe said the government will develop a ...
Private English tests for Japan university entrance exams delayed after minister's gaffe
The government review, which will take over a year, follows a widely criticized remark by the education minister that appeared to discriminate against low-income families.
Government to put Japanese family names first when using Roman alphabet from Jan. 1
The government will write family names first when using the Roman alphabet for Japanese names on official documents from Jan. 1, the education minister said Friday. Respective ministries and agencies will notify related industries in the private sector of the government's decision, which breaks from ...
