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CHAPTER 2. IMPROVEMENT OF EDUCATIONAL CONTENT AND METHOD
5 Admission Procedures
(l) Access to Institutions of Secondary Education


As already mentioned in Chapter I, the proportion of lower secondary school graduates going on to upper secondary schools exceeds 80% in Japan, and 98% of the lower secondary school pupils who want to go on to upper secondary school are admitted. There are still however, many problems to be solved in admission procedures.

Admission procedures are decided by each prefecture board of education in light of the actual conditions of the community and school. This provision, however, has resulted in wide differences in admission procedures among prefectures. The number of subjects covered in the scholastic achievement tests ranges from a high, of nine (three prefectures) to a low of three (four prefectures). Between these two extremes, one prefecture gives examinations in six subjects, 35prefectures in five subjects and two in four subjects. There is also a prefecture, which does not conduct scholastic achievement tests in any subjects.

As mentioned above, the selection of entrants into upper secondary schools is made by each prefecture. The great impact that entrance examinations for upper secondary schools may have upon the lower secondary school education, however, makes it necessary to appraise the appropriateness of conducting examinations, the extent to which credentials submitted to upper secondary schools from lower secondary schools should be evaluated, the number and kinds of subjects to be covered in examinations, the content of questions, and the method of presenting them.

In addition, there is an institutional problem in the tendency of students to concentrate in particularly prestigious schools. To solve this problem, some new attempts are being employed such as the system of automatically allocating lower secondary school graduates who have passed examinations to one of a group of several upper secondary schools. The problems, however, have not yet been solved. Other major countries can be divided into three groups in terms of their admission procedures. The first group includes the United States in which there is no selective examination for transition from junior to senior high schools. The second group includes European countries where some form of selection between elementary education and lower stage of secondary education exists. The third group includes the U.S.S.R. in which selective examinations are conducted only for upper secondary education level vocational schools corresponding to the technical college in Japan.

As mentioned above, in the European countries, selective examinations between elementary and secondary schools such as the eleven-plus examinations in the United Kingdom, have traditionally been conducted, thereby dividing pupils into different types of schools at an early stage (11 years old in France and ten in the Federal Republic of Germany). In recent years, however, the appropriateness of dividing children by a single examination has come to be doubted.

In England and Wales, the eleven-plus examinations are being abolished in those areas where comprehensive secondary schools have been established.

In France pupils are put into the secondary education courses most suited to their abilities and aptitudes by orientation guidance committees, taking into consideration the opinions of the school and of parents. Pupils thus selected, however, may transfer to another type of school during their secondary education period. In the Federal Republic of Germany elementary and secondary schoolteachers cooperatively conduct 'examination classes' lasting one to two weeks, in an attempt to make an appropriate selection of pupils.

As described above, in most major countries, selective examinations for the upper stage of secondary education are being abolished or improved.


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