Photo/Illutration Toru Hiyoshi, head of the Saitama prefectural board of education, speaks at a news conference on Aug. 22 at the prefectural government’s office in Saitama. (Shun Nakamura)

The Saitama prefectural board of education said it will “proactively promote” co-education among the 12 prefectural single-sex high schools, but its report provided no specifics on how it intends to achieve this.

In fact, the board’s report, released on Aug. 22, was so ambiguous that both sides of the educational issue expressed disappointment.

The report was released about a year after the gender equality grievance committee, a third-party organization of the prefectural government, recommended that the board make all-boys and all-girls schools “co-educational at the earliest possible date.”

The committee had asked the board to compile a report on the matter within a year.

The board received a similar recommendation and compiled a report in fiscal 2002 that only said the education system would “be maintained for the time being.”

The latest report pointed out that school education should be reformed in response to changes in society, such as “the promotion of gender equality and the rapid progress of globalization.”

“It is meaningful for boys and girls to spend their three years of high school life cooperating with each other,” the report said.

It concluded by saying the board “will proactively promote co-education as part of a comprehensive study of the future of prefectural high schools.”

On how to make these single-gender schools co-educational, the report only said the board “needs to carefully grasp the opinions of people of the prefecture, so (it) will conduct questionnaires, exchange opinions by region, and hear the views of experts.”

It did not give a specific time frame for these measures.

Toru Hiyoshi, who heads the education board, said at a news conference on Aug. 22 that the board will think about the issue comprehensively, including the possibility of keeping all-boys and all-girls schools.

At the same time, he said, “As long as we are saying we are promoting (co-education), I think we need to think about the image of 12 schools becoming co-educational as a goal.”

The latest recommendation was prompted by a complaint from a prefectural resident who said, “A prefectural all-boys high school’s refusal to admit girls is a violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.”

The board heard opinions from parents of children attending single-sex and co-ed schools, students and civic groups. A questionnaire was also sent to junior high and high school students and their parents in the prefecture.

Proponents and opponents of co-education bickered over the issue.

Kyogaku-net Saitama, a citizens’ group that promotes co-education, held a news conference in April to share its views.

In response, the presidents of the alumni associations of four separate schools, including the all-boys Saitama Prefectural Urawa High School and the all-girls Saitama Prefectural Urawa Girls’ Upper Secondary School, also known as Urawa Ichijo, held a news conference to defend single-sex education.

The board’s report acknowledged “certain needs” for single-sex schools, and said they “ensure equal educational opportunities for boys and girls,” based on the fact that children can choose to attend co-ed schools.

Against this backdrop of conflicting opinions, the board in the report did not clearly show a path toward co-education.

It also provided no specifics, not even the names of the schools.

Harumi Shimizu, 72, who represents Kyogaku-net Saitama, said, “The report is significant in that the prefectural board of education is taking the initiative in promoting the change, but there is no concrete plan in place.”

Shimizu called for the establishment of a study council to promote co-education.

Hiroshi Nobe, 71, president of the Urawa High School alumni association, said: “The report ignores the opinions of prefectural residents. It is unfortunate that the report clearly states the policy of promoting co-education. It could be taken as a statement that the school will not become co-ed right away, but I wonder if (the board) will repeat the same thing again in a few years.”

(This article was written by Satomi Sugihara, Shun Nakamura and Miu Yamada.)

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