Oh, by the way, we kind of…forgot to teach you…
The scandal of the day: high schools across Japan have not been teaching their students classes in all the subjects required for graduation. This morning’s report on the story at Mainichi had the number of schools at 83, but the above screen capture from tonight’s news now has the number at 171 schools in 29 prefectures (and I wouldn’t be surprised if the number gets bigger tomorrow). Why were students not taught the required subjects? Mainichi has some details:
Students are officially required to study world history and one of two other subjects: Japanese history and geography.
The Ehime Prefectural Board of Education said all 149 third-year students at Ehime prefectural Imabari Higashi High School had studied only one of the three subjects.
“It was due to a strong request from students,” a school representative was quoted as saying.
A ministry official said he had no idea that the schools were skipping required subjects.
“We thought that the compulsory subjects and courses were being taken. This is unbelievable. If they can’t abide by the official curriculum guidelines, then it’s possible the same thing could happen with science subjects.”
An official at a major cram school said reduced lesson time had put teachers under pressure.
“With the school week being reduced to five days a week and lesson time decreasing, schools are going ahead with efficient lessons so students can somehow meet the levels of university entrance exams. The effect of Saturday morning lessons disappearing at high schools is large.
“This was probably a ‘last resort’ for teachers. It’s a problem that has resulted from the gap between the current curriculum and the state of university entrance exams,” the official said.
Like almost everything else in pre-university education, it’s all about the exams. Who gives a crap about world history in geography if they’re not stressed on the exams? The students might learn more, but time would be taken away from exam-related subjects, which would ruin their chances of getting into a good university. The same goes for English: who cares about actually being able to communicate in a foreign language when there is no foreign language communication-based portion of entrance exams? Let’s not blame the teachers; it’s clearly the entrance exam system.
