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UPDATE: Saturday, June 12, 2010      The Japan Times Weekly    2007年6月23日号 (バックナンバー)
 
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JAPAN TIMES EDITORIAL
June 23, 2007
要約


Education proposal may teach wrong moral values
(From The Japan Times June 15 issue)

 


教育再生会議の第2次報告

    An advisory body to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has disclosed a second set of recommendations on improving the quality of public education. Among them is a call for upgrading moral education. Elementary and junior high schools have a class on morality, but it is not a course based on text-books. To ''have all children acquire a high degree of norm consciousness,'' the Education Resusci-tation Council proposes that moral education become a full-fledged subject using govern-ment-screened textbooks. The proposal risks instilling children with moral values preferred by the government.

    Under the proposal, textbooks would be approved by the government. Supplementary material will also be used. Children would be taught respect for people and nature through accounts of great figures and classic works. Care would be taken to involve students emotionally with culture and sports. The government's ideas would be reflected in the textbooks. Thus it would be easier to ma-nipulate the minds of children concerning the ''attitude of loving the nation'' and ''public spirit,'' listed as goals under the revised Fundamental Law of Education.

    The panel also recommends letting public schools offer Saturday classes. This would undermine the five-day school week system without a proper review. The system was introduced from 1992 to 2002 as part of a ''more relaxed'' education policy. On the basis of aptitude tests, the education ministry believes that the policy has succeeded in halting a decline in academic performance and has helped children become more enthusiastic toward study.

The Japan Times Weekly: June 23, 2007
(C) All rights reserved

      政府の教育再生会議は、小中学校の徳育(道徳教育)の教科化などを盛り込んだ第2次報告を安倍首相に提出した。すでに小中学校で徳育は行われているが、教科書に基づく教科に入っていない。報告では、「規範意識を育成するため」徳育は文科省検定教科書に基づく正規教科に格上げすべきとしている。

     また、徳育では偉人伝、古典作品などを通じ、人間と自然を尊重する精神を育むとしている。

     さらに報告では、公立学校での土曜授業の復活を提言した。これは、「ゆとり教育」の一環として1992年から導入された学校5日制を、十分な検討なしに崩壊させることになる。文科省は、ゆとり教育は学力低下に歯止めをかけ、勉学意欲を高めたと評価している。

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