BY YUKA HONDA/ Staff Writer
September 10, 2023 at 12:19 JST
Students arrive at Hibiya High School in Tokyo on Feb. 21 to take the entrance examination. (Yuka Honda)
Tokyo will eliminate gender-based quotas for high school entrance examinations, effective next spring, making it the last among the nation’s 47 prefectural-level governments to do away with the requirement, according to well-placed sources.
The board of education’s new rule will apply to current third-year junior high school students seeking admission to co-educational public high schools, the sources said.
Tokyo had faced withering criticism for continuing with the policy as the rest of the country was scrapping rules deemed to be “contrary to gender equality.”
Separate quotas will be abolished in both general and recommended entrance examinations.
The Tokyo metropolitan government and the Tokyo Association of Private Junior and Senior High Schools will hold a public-private liaison council meeting on Sept. 11 to formalize the agreement.
The board of education implemented a gradual shift to a joint admission system for male and female students in 2021. As a mitigating measure, it established a “joint quota” of 10 percent for the 2022 entrance examination and 20 percent for this year under which students were accepted or rejected based on their grades, regardless of gender.
By eliminating gender-based quotas, the number of boys accepted into metropolitan high schools is expected to drop by approximately 600, according to a board estimate released in 2021.
Study: 284 girls failed high school entrance exams due to gender
July 14, 2022
Tokyo last to abolish gender section for high school applicants
October 31, 2022
Schools conduct usual ceremonies with precautions against virus
April 6, 2020
British Council selected to handle English speaking test
July 14, 2023
Female high school students at summit call for ending sexism
December 13, 2019
Schools across Japan work on adopting pants as option for all
June 27, 2022
Stories about memories of cherry blossoms solicited from readers
Cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.
A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry
A series on the death of a Japanese woman that sparked a debate about criminal justice policy in the United States
A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II
Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
