Tokyo will eliminate gender quotas for access to secondary education – Observer

The capital of Japan, Tokyo, will eliminate gender quotas for access to secondary education starting in the spring, according to Japanese daily The Asahi Shimbun.

The education council’s new rule will apply to current third-year high school students who want to enter mixed public schools, the newspaper states on its online page in English, adding that gender quotas will be eliminated both for the general access tests as well as for the recommended ones.

The Tokyo metropolitan government and the Association of Private High Schools will formalize the decision at a meeting scheduled for Monday.

The quota measure, adopted in 1950, aimed to ensure that secondary education had an equal number of boys and girls. However, over time, the quota turned into something negative for the girls, as teachers deliberately lowered their grades to meet the set numbers, according to the Europa Press agency.

Given this, in 2021, the Japanese education board began implementing a gradual shift to a joint admission system for male and female students.

As a mitigating measure, it established a “joint quota” – 10 percent for the 2022 entrance exam and 20 percent for this year’s entry – under which students were accepted or rejected solely based on their grades and regardless of your gender.

Tokyo authorities have been criticized for maintaining quotas for access to secondary education when all 46 other local governments in Japan have already eliminated them, considering them “contrary to gender equality”.

By eliminating gender-based quotas, the number of boys accepted into metropolitan secondary schools is estimated to decrease by approximately 600.