Digitally Advanced Textbooks

Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology released results of its examination of textbooks for mid-schools. With broad prevalence of computers in the classrooms, new textbooks are highly digitalized, introducing QR Code on text page to guide the readers to related webpage. Climate change, Sustainable Development Goals, gender equality or new technologies including generative artificial intelligence appears on the pages.

The examination was taken for the first time since last one in 2019. According to a report of Asahi Shimbun, 103 textbooks participated in the examination, and 100 passed it. One textbook for technical arts and home economics were declined with too much mistakes in its description and the conclusion for two social study textbooks, mainly dealing with history, were postponed.

 

Digital teaching materials on the textbooks increased to over twenty thousand, expanding by four times compared to the previous exam in 2019. By using digital technologies, the students can access the voice of native English speakers, without relying on doubtful pronunciation of Japanese teachers in English class. They can also use applications for designing charts in mathematics. Description about digital learning is steeply increasing in recent years, inviting skepticisms on the substance of description.

 

There appeared various descriptions on gender equality on the textbooks in moral study. Some textbooks introduced a fashion model or an athlete who lives genderless life. One English textbook quoted whole lyrics of a song written by Taylor Swift, which protected rights of sexual minority. Another textbook of social study explained the meaning of “LGBTQ+” and equality of marriage including same sex marriage.

 

Climate change or SDGs is a popular subject for social study or science. It has become common for educational institutes to let the students think about which category of seven development goals their study is contributing to. While SDGs are some goals for eliminating poverty in the world, the Japanese people have a tendency to interpret them as the ways to preserve natural environment or energy.

 

One of the goals of education in Japan is raising “global human resource,” a type of person who can work in international communities. It can be understandable, if it means raising cosmopolitans. However, the education in Japan is still not more than raising a person who speaks English fluently or a winner of International Mathematics Olympiad. One publisher has to revise the description about Ippei Mizuhara, a former interpreter for a baseball super star, Shohei Otani, who are suspected to be involved in illegal gambling. The textbook picked Mizuhara as one of the people who supported success.

 

Along with the advice of Education Ministry, most textbooks described the Northern Territory, the Takeshima Island and the Senkaku Island as inherited territories of Japan. Some explained that the negotiation between Japan and Russia over the Northern Territory was suspended by Russia’s invasion to Ukraine.

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