Photo/Illutration An application form for admission to high schools operated by the Tokyo metropolitan government this year. The gender section is at the right of the space for the applicant’s name in the second line from the bottom. (Provided by the Tokyo metropolitan board of education)

Tokyo will be the last among the nation’s 47 prefectural-level governments to scrap the gender section in application forms for admission to public high schools to lift the psychological burden for sexual minority students.

The Tokyo metropolitan board of education decided to eliminate the section for entering the applicant’s gender from entrance exams next spring.

A board official said there has been a need to retain the gender section “to a certain degree” because Tokyo, unlike all other prefectural-level governments, sets quotas for male and female students at co-educational public high schools.

Osaka and Fukuoka prefectures were the first to remove the section in 2019. All prefectural-level governments except for Tokyo have done away with the section, according to a Cabinet Office survey of prefectural boards of education nationwide.

Tokyo has more than twice as many private high schools for girls than for boys, so gender-segregated admission quotas continue to be used for public high schools to make adjustments between public and private schools.

Considering criticism that the quotas “go against the concept of gender equality,” the metropolitan board of education plans to abolish the system from entrance exams in 2024, at the earliest.

The board said it will refer to schooling reports submitted by junior high schools for applicants’ genders in entrance exams next year when gender-segregated quotas remain.

“Checking both the application form and schooling report will entail more work,” a board official said. “But we decided to eliminate the gender section for students who otherwise might come under mental stress for having to specify their gender.”

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