Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > Japanese Government Policies in Education, Science, Sports and Culture 2000 > Trends in Educational Reform Section 2 Q8 What kinds of advantages do these schools have?

At unified lower and upper secondary schools, either upper secondary school entrance examinations are not carried out, or the impact is slight, even when they are. As a result, students are able to pass six years of school life in a both temporally and mentally relaxed and flexible environment.

The relaxed and flexible school life leads to the following advantages:

(1) It gives students room to try out various things. As such, through these activities, they are able to deeply ponder their own aptitudes and future. Furthermore, this enables students to further unravel their individuality and discover their hidden potential.

(2) Given that students from the six grades-from first year of lower secondary school students to third year of upper secondary school-have many opportunities to participate in activities together, they are able to learn how to interact with other people and acquire cooperativeness and a sense of responsibility.

(3) Since it allows each of these schools to carry out its characteristic education, students, in accordance with their preferences and interests, will, for example:

Carry out learning that emphasizes experimental activities such as proactively conducting experiments and observation outside of school, and participating in volunteer work; Carry out learning taking advantage of the nature in the community as well as local history and culture; Carry out learning that places emphasis on responding to internationalization, by creating opportunities to engage with people from abroad, for example; Carry out learning that values responding to the information society, including the use of the Internet; Will learn how to study effectively according to their individual aspirations.