Photo/Illutration School children sit for the national academic achievement survey in April. (Pool)

A national academic achievement survey was recently held in which 1.86 million sixth graders and third-year junior high school students across the country took part.

One of the main challenges for education in elementary and junior high schools today is the widening academic achievement gap traced to factors related to family environments.

The education ministry believes the national assessment results, as well as concurrent surveys of school educators and students composed of questionnaires, offer several clues for improvement.

Children from households with fewer books and lower socio-economic backgrounds tend to have lower average scores across all subjects.

However, it has been found that with the right teaching methods, these disadvantaged students can perform as well as those from homes with loads of books.

For example, children who thought they were receiving education designed to encourage independent efforts, like tackling problems of personal interest, tended to perform well.

Lessons that enhance both “individual optimized learning,” which allows progress at one’s own pace, and “collaborative learning,” where children work together, also proved effective.

Lessons based on such approaches that effectively use information and communication technology (ICT) devices like tablets seem to have a positive effect on motivating children with fewer books at home, enhancing their willingness to take on challenges and bolstering their sense of being able to help others.

However, all these teaching methods require more time and effort than traditional class-wide teaching. Due to resistance to change and busy schedules, some teachers and schools are still not addressing these issues adequately.

In this national assessment of academic achievements, students who believe that their classes were designed neither as “individual optimized learning” nor “collaborative learning” and did not involve effective use of ICT generally turned in low scores across all subjects.

The measures intended to bridge educational disparities might be creating new forms of inequality.

Due to these concerns, many teachers are calling for a careful selection of educational content as outlined in the education ministry’s official guidelines for school teaching, along with a significant increase in the number of teachers.

It is essential to ensure that teachers are not subject to excessive physical or mental pressure and have sufficient face-to-face time with students. Training sessions to learn effective teaching methods are also essential.

Another issue identified in the survey is the absence from the tests of most school truants. Approximately 100,000 students among sixth graders and third-year junior high school students are chronically absent from school. Few of them sat for the tests in the assessment.

Starting from the 2027 fiscal year, the education ministry plans to fully transition to a “CBT” (computer-based testing) assessment method, where answers are submitted via tablets and other digital devices.

This change is expected to make it easier for students who, for various reasons, are unable to attend school to participate. However, it will be crucial to ensure that students’ performance is not significantly influenced by how they and their schools adapted to the use of ICT.

The purpose of the assessment is to evaluate and identify issues in education policy with the goal of maintaining and improving the quality and equality of compulsory education, thereby leading to improvements in teaching at each school.

To achieve this goal, there are many challenges that the education ministry and local educational boards need to address.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 3