Japanese kids show no weakening in academic skills: national exam

Saturday 30th August, 07:19 AM JST

TOKYO —

The academic ability of sixth graders and third-year junior high school students shows no major change from a year earlier, but students need to continue to improve their applied skills, the education ministry said Friday based on the results of this year’s nationwide achievement exam.

In the April 2008 exam, the students gave correct answers to basic questions in Japanese language and mathematics an average of about 64-74% of the time, while answering applied questions correctly an average 50-62% of the time.

The average percentages for the number of correct answers in both subjects were 8 to 16 percentage points lower than the year before, but the ministry stressed that this does not reflect weakened abilities, explaining that this year’s questions were more difficult than last year’s.

This is the second year since the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology resumed the exam in 2007 following a 43-year hiatus, in response to growing concerns that Japanese children’s academic skills had been deteriorating.

Given that the exam results have failed to reveal any distinctive overall trends over the two years, however, calls for canceling the costly test may grow.

This year’s exam was conducted among 1.16 million sixth-grade students at elementary schools and 1.08 million third-year students at junior high schools and cost 5.8 billion yen in total. All public schools but one in Aichi Prefecture and 53% of all private schools took part.

‘‘I can’t find any meaning in spending several billion yen every year to conduct this exam,’’ said Yoichi Shiraishi, associate professor at Kumamoto University. ‘‘Forcing schools to go through what would be an endless repetition of verification and improvement only adds to their concerns.’‘

Katsuhiro Arai, professor at Tohoku University, pointed to the need to maintain the level of questions so as to have them reflected in the government’s education policy and administration.

‘‘The test should be conducted in such a way that each year’s results can be properly compared,’’ Arai said, stressing that such a nationwide exam needs to be continued.

According to the results, Akita and Fukui prefectures once again came out top in terms of the percentage of corrected answers, while the southernmost prefecture of Okinawa was the poorest performer. But no drastic gaps were seen between urban and rural areas.

Among other distinctive results, students who watched less TV or played fewer TV games garnered higher scores. Schools with a higher percentage of students under state subsidy did more poorly than those with a lower percentage of such students.

In order to avoid excessive competition, the ministry asked local education committees not to disclose the exam results of each municipality and school, while getting them to reflect on how to improve the course contents.

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11 Comments

serindipity at 11:57 AM JST - 30th August

A result like this makes me wonder how many of the kids were given answers before the test or if the results have been fiddled with, as per previous similar exams.
Statistician at 03:06 PM JST - 30th August

If you believe this kind of loaded political statistic you will believe that the moon is made of green cheese.
fatloser at 03:29 PM JST - 30th August

How much knowledge do any of us need to become drones and reproduce? It would be more interesting to know who their idols are and what the read,eat and watch on tv. And what % are contemplating murder!!
presto345 at 07:24 PM JST - 30th August

Academic skills can never be accurately evaluated by standard tests students have been drilled to participate in. Wouldn't it be a better idea to gather facts of all students' progress in a national data base and use that as a reference point to decide on education tactics?
borscht at 08:57 AM JST - 31st August

Statistician,

It isn't?
medievaltimes at 09:24 AM JST - 31st August

For the amount of studying Japanese kids do, they seem really uneducated to me.

There seems to be no ability for abstract thinking. No ability for independent thought. No ability for debate. No ability for even the most basic of logical thinking. And a shockingly large number of people think Japan is the only country in the world with four seasons.
mikihouse at 10:37 AM JST - 31st August

Japan don't need abstract thinkers, debaters, and logical thinkers. They need dumb people who will keep on voting the LDP into power, never question anything fed upon them by corrupt officials, and yes they make good drones for the next job.
borscht at 01:56 PM JST - 31st August

Japan needs abstract and logical thinkers and people who can debate their opinions because they don't have any right now. ("It's the Japanese way." Is Not a defense.) As for the amount of time Japanese kids study... are they 'studying' or are they 'in school.' Two very different activities. I would say, though, that given the number of kids who spend hours and hours at a juku, they really are mis-educated.
rjd_jr at 03:10 PM JST - 31st August

Great news, once again confounding the naysayers full of doom and gloom for Japanese youth.
MrMukatsuku at 04:14 PM JST - 31st August

Japanese examiners show no weakening in academic skills

If you wanted to stay employed - Would you tell your boss that you couldn't do your job?

Slacken the marking criteria and hey presto - everyone's a genius.
angeljapan at 08:51 AM JST - 4th September

Considering how in the junior high school I work at, the passing grade is 30%.... I wonder what the official passing grade for this exam was?