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Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > JAPANESE GOVERMENT POLICICIES IN EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND CULTURE 1994 > PART I Chapter 3 2 1

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PART I New Directions in School Education
Chapter 3. Creating Upper Secondary Schools with Distinctive Characteristics
Section 2. Establishment of the Integrated Course
1. Reasons for Establishing the Integrated Course


As discussed in the previous section, upper secondary education in Japan is currently undergoing various reforms with the aim of creating a system of education that can provide a flexible response to students' diverse abilities, aptitudes, interests, concerns, and career paths, on the premise that education should be based on respect for students' individuality. One of the most important of these reforms is revision of the course structure, which was formerly divided into general and specialized courses, through the addition of the new integrated course.

A variety of reforms were implemented under the old two-course structure with the aim of creating an educational framework that could flexibly accommodate students' varying abilities, aptitudes, interests, concerns, and career paths. The scope for expansion of the range of choices available to students was necessarily limited, however. The general course exists primarily to provide general education, while the specialized course, centered on vocational subject areas, is designed mainly to provide vocational education. It was therefore difficult to provide general-course students with a wide range of vocational subject areas and subjects or to offer specialized-course students a variety of subject areas and subjects related to general education.

This situation created a number of problems. For example, it was not possible to respond adequately to the needs of general-course students who wanted to enter the work force upon graduation or the needs of vocational-course students who wished to proceed to higher education. In addition, there was a tendency to view the two courses according to rigid perceptions: the general course was seen as the path to higher education, whereas the specialized course was regarded as a path to employment. These attitudes reinforced the ranking of schools and were also partly responsible for other problems, such as excessive emphasis on standard score in career guidance. It was therefore decided to establish the integrated course, which encompasses content from both the general and the specialized courses, to overcome the limitations of the two-course structure and create an additional framework that would provide students with the widest possible range of learning opportunities.


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