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Over the years prefectural boards of education and individual schools have worked to improve systems of selecting entrants to upper secondary schools in response to changing conditions and various issues that have confronted upper secondary education. At present, entrance to an upper secondary school is subject to approval by the school's principal on the basis of scholastic test results, student credentials, and other information. In the case of public upper secondary schools, scholastic tests are administered by the establishing authority, which is the prefectural or municipal board of education. In all prefectures, the tests for all but a few schools cover Japanese language, mathematics, social studies, science, and foreign languages. In the case of private upper secondary schools, the tests commonly cover three to five subjects from Japanese language, mathematics, social studies, science, and foreign languages.

In most prefectures student credentials include scholastic records, records of special activities, behavior and personality records, and attendance records. Also included are details of sports activities, cultural activities, social activities, and volunteer activities. In many prefectures the priority placed on student credentials is equal to or greater than the weight placed on the results of scholastic tests. In the case of private upper secondary schools, student credentials are employed in ways that reflect the characteristics of individual schools. While scholastic test results are an effective way of ensuring objectivity and fairness in the selection process, student credentials enable schools to evaluate other factors, such as day-to-day scholastic performance at the lower secondary school level. Another advantage is that they permit the evaluation of aspects that cannot be ascertained through scholastic tests, such as students' abilities, qualities, and strengths in nonscholastic areas.

This method of selecting entrants to upper secondary schools has continued to the present, albeit with a number of changes. For example, when the percentage of children entering upper secondary schools surged to 60% and then to 70% during the early 1960s, entrance examination competition, aggravated by the increase in the lower secondary school population, became a social problem. There was particular concern over the detrimental effect that this situation had on attitudes to learning, including a growing tendency to undertake excessive study in preparation for a single entrance examination and a tendency to undervalue day-to-day schoolwork at the lower secondary school level.

In 1966 the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture responded to this situation by establishing the Committee to Discuss Systems of Selecting Entrants to Upper Secondary Schools. The report of this committee, submitted later the same year, called for the implementation of scholastic tests in an appropriate number of subjects and for proper emphasis on student credentials. Individual prefectures responded by working to make improvements in various areas. The scope of scholastic tests, which had previously covered nine subjects in all prefectures, was reduced, and efforts were also made to ensure better utilization of student credentials.

Despite these efforts, however, excessive examination competition continued to cause a variety of problems because of the need to meet the extremely diverse needs of students in an environment in which almost all students who wished to enter upper secondary schools were able to do so. In 1983 the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture asked experts to form the Committee to Improve Systems of Selecting Entrants to Upper Secondary Schools. This committee examined various aspects of the situation and produced a report in 1984. On the basis of this report, the Ministry advised that, on the condition that the information used in selection procedures consist primarily of scholastic test results and student credentials, selection methods be diversified and based on multiple criteria, including extensive use of admission on recommendation and interviews.

Although prefectures and schools have worked to improve their selection procedures over the years, a number of problem areas have been pointed out. For example, most public upper secondary schools still conduct their scholastic tests simultaneously throughout each prefecture, using the same examination questions. There is also still a tendency toward uniformity in such areas as the processing of scholastic test results and student credentials. While this approach offers advantages in terms of fairness and stability, it cannot adequately accommodate the extreme diversity of students' circumstances, including interests, concerns, abilities, aptitudes, and career paths. The need for improvement in other areas has also been noted, including the fact that the present system does not adequately reflect local conditions or the characteristics of individual schools and subject areas.

Other problems attributed to the systems of selecting entrants to upper secondary schools include the following. First, excessive competition in entrance examinations has a detrimental effect on students' mental and physical health, and insufficient experience of activities in society and everyday life has a negative influence on character formation. Second, this competition is not conducive to students' aspiring to enter schools with characteristics that truly match their individual needs but leads them to aim instead to enter schools that are as highly ranked as possible. The exaggerated perception of school rankings puts an excessive psychological pressure on students. Third, the heavy emphasis on standard score in career guidance leads to students being enrolled involuntarily in upper secondary schools.

Since the entrant-selection process produces failures as well as passes, it is extremely difficult to devise a method that is beneficial to everyone. The difficulty of the task cannot be accepted as justification for abandoning efforts to improve systems, however. Clearly, there is a need for continued work to develop better methods that take account of the state of upper secondary education and the impact on lower secondary education, as well as the circumstances of individual regions and schools. Yet it is not possible to achieve significant improvement solely through efforts to develop better systems of entrant selection. Efforts in other areas, such as the reform of upper secondary education, including the development of upper secondary schools with distinctive characteristics, minimization of the tendency to rank upper secondary schools, and reduction of reliance on standard score in lower secondary school career guidance, must be accompanied by continued work by upper secondary school authorities and individual schools to devise better entrant-selection systems.

Despite the efforts to improve entrant-selection systems discussed above, it appears that a variety of problems still exist. The Central Council for Education, which has deliberated on the reform of upper secondary education, has also studied this issue from various perspectives.

The approach to improvement of the entrance examination system advocated in the April 1991 report of the Central Council for Education was basically the same as the direction set forth in the 1984 notice "On Systems of Selecting Entrants to Upper Secondary Schools." The council advocated various improvements, including further diversification of selection methods and the use of multiple selection criteria. It summed up its perspective on the issue as follows: "The easing of entrance examination competition is vital to the reform of upper secondary education. This must be achieved through a variety of measures, including the use of diversified and multiple evaluation criteria in the selection process. It is vital to liberate students from the psychological pressure resulting from examination competition and the excessive emphasis on standard score in order to create an education system that respects individuality and emphasizes humanity."

The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture responded by establishing an expert group, the Committee on the Promotion of the Reform of Upper Secondary Education, to study specific improvement measures on the basis of the recommendations in the report of the Central Council for Education. In February 1993 a vice-ministerial notice titled "On Systems of Selecting Entrants to Upper Secondary Schools" was issued. This notice defined approaches to entrant-selection systems and called on all concerned to make increased efforts to improve systems of selecting entrants to national, public, and private upper secondary schools and to work constructively toward increased individuality and diversity in upper secondary education. The notice defined the following basic approaches to the improvement of entrant-selection systems.

To improve systems of selecting entrants to upper secondary schools, it is necessary not only to improve actual selection methods but also to study comprehensive improvement policies that take into account the entire spectrum of lower and upper secondary education. Specifically, this requires the effective alleviation of entrance examination competition based on standard score through the linked implementation of three concepts: the development of distinctive approaches to education in upper secondary schools, the creation of diversified and multiple selection methods that reflect those approaches, and the provision of scholastic guidance and career guidance according to individual needs at the lower secondary school level.

Individual upper secondary schools should increase their efforts to develop distinctive approaches to education. In step with this process, it is necessary to enable upper secondary schools to employ diversified entrant-selection methods that reflect the characteristics of individual schools, courses, sub-courses, and so on, rather than uniform selection methods.

In line with the aims of the new Courses of Study for elementary, lower secondary, and upper secondary schools, which emphasize willingness to learn independently and the ability to think, judge, and express oneself, it is necessary to develop entrant-selection systems that allow these abilities to be appraised appropriately.

It is necessary to evaluate the abilities, aptitudes, and other characteristics of students from various perspectives, to focus on each student's individuality and strong points, and to appraise those qualities positively.

It is necessary to rectify students' tendency to choose the upper secondary schools that they wish to enter solely on the basis of standard score and instead to develop approaches that will enable students to base their choice of schools and subject areas on an understanding of the characteristics and content of schools and subject areas and on a positive motivation toward upper secondary school life.