EDITORIAL: Re-examining education

The scholastic achievement tests conducted at schools nationwide Tuesday may have been the first to step away from uniform tests overseen by the education ministry. It was the first time such nationwide academic testing has been held, in part, under the initiative of local communities.

Previously, all elementary school sixth-graders and third-year junior high school students were required to take the same tests of their arithmetic, mathematics and Japanese-language abilities. This time, only students at selected schools were required to take the standardized tests. A sampling rate of about 30 percent was deemed adequate to enable education authorities to measure the academic levels of each prefecture within an acceptable margin of error.

However, apparently out of competitiveness and the idea that it is best to match step with others, many local governments nonetheless opted to have all schools in their jurisdictions conduct the tests.

Including schools that applied for the tests of their own accord and only received question sheets from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, three out of four schools nationwide implemented the tests in some way. Some people have also complained about the need for schools to grade the tests on their own and at their own expense, if they were not among the selected schools.

What is the purpose of testing scholastic ability? What are the best methods? What role should the central government play and what must be handled by local governments? Once again, these points must be clarified.

In general, it is necessary to objectively measure how the nation's students are doing in school. The results of such findings can then be used to improve students' scholastic abilities and curriculums. The changing awareness on this point of schools in each region is the result of nationwide testing.

To improve this system, we urge boards of education and schools to take a more proactive approach. For example, because it takes months to gain the results of nationwide testing, if the tests are conducted and analyzed regionally, it should be possible to know academic levels in each region more quickly. The results can help effectively redesign lessons to meet students' needs, assign teachers and set budgets.

With the shift to a sampling system, some boards of education are planning to conduct independent achievement tests in their prefectures. The education ministry should support such initiatives by providing prefectures with the know-how for devising test problems and analyzing the results.

Critics have said Japanese schoolchildren have not been taught how to apply their store of knowledge. How can such skills be tested and improved? Teachers are also urged to work on this point.

Nationwide, child policies are undergoing drastic changes. What impact will the government's new child allowance have on learning environments and the will to learn? While an increase in teachers is in the cards, how can it improve scholastic ability? Starting next spring, elementary schools will switch to thicker textbooks, departing from the idea of yutori kyoiku (relaxed education). Won't that just be a negative form of "cramming"?

Nationwide exams are needed to examine such educational policies and ferret out other problems. By combining tests that narrow samples and aims, the tests can be designed to show changes in scholastic levels over the years. The education ministry is urged to design such a system.

Schools in Akita and Fukui prefectures that ranked high in nationwide tests received visitors from across the nation. Teachers learning from those in other prefectures have a positive effect on each other. Implementing testing at five- to 10-year intervals to compare academic levels across prefectures will allow us to grasp the relative standing of regional education.

The education ministry should analyze the problems that have become apparent as a result of past testing to show general trends. We look forward to seeing its answer sheet.

--The Asahi Shimbun, April 22