Japan Education News

When Mio Honzawa starts fifth grade next April, her textbooks will be thicker. Alarmed that children here are falling behind the kids in rivals such as South Korea and Hong Kong, the education ministry is adding about 1,200 pages to elementary school textbooks, bringing the total across all subjects for six years from 4,900 pages today to nearly 6,100. (Japan Times)

Despite their academic credentials, many Ph.D. holders in science suffer from high levels of unemployment and live unstable lives. Many of them are applying their academic knowledge in professions and work environments unrelated to their research. Based on this idea, a nonprofit organization comprising young researchers, Science Communication (SciCom) Japan, is providing online questionnaires to doctoral graduates who are already in nonscientific careers. (Yomiuri)

Schools and parent-teacher associations across the nation are devising programs to collect and offer hand-me-down school uniforms and gym clothing to students who need them. In particular, middle school students often face the problem of outgrowing their uniforms during their three-year school period. New uniform items are expensive to replace, as a school jacket alone, for example, costs about 20,000 yen. (Yomiuri)

Japan again had the smallest expenditure on education in 2007 among the 28 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in terms of the ratio of such state spending to gross domestic product, an OECD report said Tuesday. Following 2003 and 2005, the nation's ratio was the lowest in the year with 3.3 percent. Japan was also the second lowest in 2004 and 2006 in the annual OECD studies. For the latest ranking, comparable data were available among the 28 nations out of the OECD's 32 members. (AP)

The education ministry has decided to continue free distribution of "Eigo Noto" (English Notebook) teaching aids for primary school English classes even after fiscal 2011, although discontinuation after that time was decided in last year's budget screening, it was learned Tuesday. Primary school English classes will be compulsory for fifth- and sixth-year students from the 2011 academic year, which starts from April next year, but it will not be regarded as a "subject" that requires student evaluations. Each school year, 35 classes are held for each grade. Eigo Noto supplements use abundant illustrations. Greetings and how to count can be learned through games and quizzes. (Yomiuri)

A Tokyo high school is facing a 5.1 million yen water bill after a teacher left a tap running nonstop in the swimming pool for about a month, according to the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education. About 6,600 cubic meters of water--the amount of water a family of four would use in 20 years--was wasted, board officials said. According to the board, a male physical education teacher at Nerima Metropolitan High School turned on the faucet on July 20 to lower the water temperature and prevent algae growth at the suggestion of a pharmacist who examined the pool. (Yomiuri)

Having accepted foreign nurses through agreements with other countries, this nation's government has a responsibility to rectify the current situation in which their inability to understand difficult kanji prevents them from passing Japan's licensing exam for nurses. The government should do more to resolve the problem. (Yomiuri)

The government is set to introduce a new program that will encourage more students to study abroad by giving them financial assistance to stay overseas for a short period of time, it has been learned. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is launching what it has dubbed a "short visit" program from next fiscal year to boost the number of students who study abroad. In a bid to encourage more students to go abroad, the ministry will solicit students who are willing to stay overseas for a period of two weeks to three months so they can get a taste of what an overseas education is like. (Mainichi)

Princess Aiko was not present for the opening ceremony of her school's second semester on Sept. 6. Princess Aiko, 8, is a third-grader at Gakushuin Primary School. After she came to school on the 6th accompanied by her mother Crown Princess Masako, the two waited in a classroom while the opening ceremony was held. Princess Aiko joined her homeroom after the ceremony finished, but went home with her mother before 10:30 a.m. (Mainichi)

The Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme, touted as the world's largest cultural exchange scheme, has brought thousands of non-Japanese into the country to teach at local boards of education. These days, with many government programs being told to justify their existence, a debate is raging over whether JET should be left as is, cut or abolished entirely. (Japan Times)

It turns out that a surprisingly high number of grade schools in Japan are serving their students more than just a well-rounded education. According to the results of a survey released today, whale meat is back on the menu at about a sixth of Japan's public elementary and junior-high schools. In recent years, the nation has stirred the ire of environmentalists for continuing to hunt whales despite a decline in the meat's popularity -- to feed their kids, apparently. (treehugger.com)

When Mio Honzawa starts fifth grade next April, her textbooks will be thicker. Alarmed that its children are falling behind those in rivals such as South Korea and Hong Kong, Japan is adding about 1,200 pages to elementary school textbooks, bringing the total across all subjects for six years from 4,900 pages today to nearly 6,100. In a move that has divided educators and experts, Japan is going back to basics after a 10-year experiment in "pressure-free education," which encouraged more application of knowledge and less rote memorization. (MSNBC)

Leave it up to academics to take something that should be simple and make a long, complicated theory out of it. Politeness, for example. Your mother taught you about being polite, right? Something like: Treat others the way you'd like to be treated, show kindness and respect to others, don't make trouble. But Mom's advice wasn't enough for linguists Stephen Levinson and Penelope Brown. (Yomiuri)

To expand medical tourism, the government plans to make it easier for Chinese and other Asians to obtain short-term medical service visas by providing information on Web sites of Japanese embassies and consulates. The goal is to make this country's advanced medical services accessible to wealthy Chinese and other Asians. (Yomiuri)

Akihisa Shirota has piles of manga in his office. He likes to take math drills with the students. And he dismisses the "ivory tower" types as living too "in the box." Not your average junior high school principal in any country, but especially in Japan, a country renowned for its rigorous and rudimentary educational system. Look at Shirota's resume and you notice what's not there: the words "teacher" or "educator." It's instead dotted with high tech and publishing companies he's headed as the president or manager. (CNN)

The more I think about Gregory Clark's Aug. 17 article, "Saving Japan's universities," the more I am troubled by the author's offhand judgments and broad-brush pronouncements. The tone throughout is paternalistic and pejorative, and very little of value is suggested. The main problem Clark identifies is that Japan's universities do not provide students with a "feeling of achievement." The root of this problem, he says, lies in the fact that "Japan by nature is not a very intellectual society." (Japan Times)

The government said Tuesday it will help foreign residents master the Japanese language to improve their quality of life. "Foreign residents in Japan have difficulties in finding jobs due to their insufficient language capabilities, and more people have faced hardships in their lives," a guideline compiled by a Cabinet Office panel says. As solutions, the panel proposed improving the quality of Japanese-language teachers and providing vocational training in line with residents' language capabilities. (Japan Times)

Police are poised to report an elementary school principal accused of using a mobile phone to film inside a woman's skirt to public prosecutors, it has been learned. Police plan to send public prosecutors documents on the 50-year-old principal of an elementary school in Setana, Hokkaido, on suspicion of violating a prefectural ordinance banning people from creating a public nuisance. (Mainichi)

A private university here has been ordered by a court to rehire a former assistant professor who was fired after the completion of her trial period, it has been learned. During the labor tribunal on May 13, the Mito District Court ruled in favor of the former assistant professor in her 50s and ordered Tokiwa University to withdraw its decision to dismiss her, and pay the outstanding balance of her salary dating back to October 2009. However, the university protested the legal judgment at the tribunal and brought the case to the court, with the trial set to start on Aug. 30. (Mainichi)

Dear minister of education Tatsuo Kawabata, I have been working as an assistant language teacher (ALT) in your public school system for five months now. Although it might be considered a bit premature to pen a word to you after such a short time, I would like to draw your attention to some fairly standard behavior across the six schools I work at. I think it is also time to let you in on a little secret: Disciplining students is not a bad thing. It just depends on how it is done. (Japan Times)