Photo/Illutration The Tokyo Institute of Technology campus (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Thirty-three national universities, more than 40 percent of the respondents, have or plan to introduce female admission quotas to address broad gender gaps in certain fields, according to a recent survey. 

Most of these quotas are specifically for science and engineering departments, where the percentage of female students is particularly low.

These types of quotas are increasing rapidly at national universities due to support from the central government and a sense of crisis among university officials seeking a more diverse student body.

The survey was conducted from April to May by The Asahi Shimbun at 80 of the 86 national universities across the country. It excluded two women’s universities and four graduate institutes that do not have entrance exams.

Of the 80 universities contacted, all except the University of Tokyo responded to the survey.

Twelve universities, including the Tokyo Institute of Technology and Kumamoto University, said that they had already introduced female admission quotas.

Some departments of the Nagoya Institute of Technology began to introduce such quotas as far back as their entrance exams for fiscal 1994 entrants.

Three universities introduced female admission quotas in their entrance exams for fiscal 2023 entrants and another eight universities followed suit for fiscal 2024 entrants.

Seventeen universities, including Kyoto University and Chiba University, said they are planning to introduce such quotas.

Fourteen of those said they will do so in their entrance exams for fiscal 2025 entrants, while three will do so for incoming students in fiscal 2026.

Iwate University, Yokohama National University, Okayama University and Ehime University said they “are considering introducing” such gender quotas.

In all, 33 universities, or 41.3 percent, said already have or are planning or considering quotas for female students.

Most of the departments with female admission quotas are related to engineering, and science and information.

The survey asked universities that had already introduced female quotas why they did so.

The most common response was that there was an urgent need to correct the large gender gap in these fields.

Hiroshima University said the purpose was to correct the male-female ratio, which is “significantly skewed.”

Kanazawa University said, “The lack of female students is a barrier to female applicants.”

The Nagoya Institute of Technology said, “We are not able to respond to the needs of industries for female engineers.”

The education ministry also supports implementing quotas to ensure greater student diversity.

In 2022, the ministry suggested creating quotas for female students in the fields of science and engineering in the guidelines for entrance exams, which universities refer to.

Of the 33 universities, six universities—Tokyo Institute of Technology, Niigata University, Nagoya University, Mie University, Kobe University and Shimane University—said they plan to increase the number of departments that set a quota for female students.

In the survey, 12 universities said they are currently debating whether or not to introduce a quota for female students.

On the other hand, 34 universities said they were not considering introducing quotas for female students.

Many of those 34 universities have a focus on teacher training, medical studies and the liberal arts, and have many female students enrolled. 

A representative of the University of Tokyo, which declined to respond to the survey, said, “We are considering effective measures including options other than female quotas.”

(This article was written by Yukihito Takahama, Hajime Ueno and Yukiko Kitamura.)

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