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PART Recent Trends and Developments in Government Policies in Education, Science and Culture

An analysis of recent trends in pupil's problem behaviors and adjustment problems at school reveals that while school violence and bullying have been decreasing there are still a significant number of cases for both of these problem behaviors. Moreover, every year there are growing numbers of elementary and lower secondary school pupils who refuse to attend school and there are still large numbers of upper secondary school dropouts every year. Dealing with young people's maladjustment to school life has become an important issue within the education sector. Efforts in student guidance should not only be limited to dealing with individual cases; student guidance activities should be upgraded and improved in order to help foster students who are active and independent, considering the individuality of each student. From this standpoint, the Ministry is tackling the problem of students' refusal to attend school and reexamining strict school rules on students' appearance and conduct.

In order to upgrade career guidance services so that these are more relevant to abilities, aptitudes and interests of individual students, the Ministry has improved the content of guidance in the revised Course of Study, carried out investigative studies on career guidance methods and published a set of guidance materials in May 1992.

Moreover, in order to help reduce the excessive attendance of children at academic juku (private cram schools), the Ministry has been making efforts to improve the quality of test questions used in entrance examinations at both national and private lower and upper secondary schools.