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Educational Crisis
Oct. 27th, 2006 07:28 amThe big news of the hour here in Japan is that there are thousands of high school seniors across the country who are in danger of not graduating due to the failure of their schools to require the proper curriculum.
The national requirements for graduation from high school are that all students must have world history AND either Japanese history or geography. However, the biggest colleges only require that a student have taken ONE of those three subjects.
High school used to be six days a week (Monday through Saturday), but in the late 1990s that was reduced to a five-day week, so schools had to cut back on the number of hours they were teaching. To maintain their effectiveness in preparing students for college, they focused on teaching only the subjects required by the colleges. It has just come to light that, in pursuing this particular focus, over a hundred schools nationwide were failing to meet national graduation requirements. Thus, there are thousands of seniors who need to make up an extra class (world history, Japanese history, or geography) in order to be able to graduate...and graduation is in March, which means their only choice is to come in before school, after school, and during winter vacation. These are students who are ALREADY stressed out over taking their college entrance exams soon.
I don't believe my school is having this problem, thank goodness. If I were one of the affected students, though, I would be seriously angry at the school.
The national requirements for graduation from high school are that all students must have world history AND either Japanese history or geography. However, the biggest colleges only require that a student have taken ONE of those three subjects.
High school used to be six days a week (Monday through Saturday), but in the late 1990s that was reduced to a five-day week, so schools had to cut back on the number of hours they were teaching. To maintain their effectiveness in preparing students for college, they focused on teaching only the subjects required by the colleges. It has just come to light that, in pursuing this particular focus, over a hundred schools nationwide were failing to meet national graduation requirements. Thus, there are thousands of seniors who need to make up an extra class (world history, Japanese history, or geography) in order to be able to graduate...and graduation is in March, which means their only choice is to come in before school, after school, and during winter vacation. These are students who are ALREADY stressed out over taking their college entrance exams soon.
I don't believe my school is having this problem, thank goodness. If I were one of the affected students, though, I would be seriously angry at the school.
