Suginami Ward is the third municipality this year, after Otawara, Tochigi Prefecture, and Tokyo, to adopt the contentious junior high text, which was compiled by members of the nationalist Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform and published by Fuso Publishing Inc.

The adoption paves the way for the textbook to be used by the roughly 6,400 students who will attend the ward's 23 junior high schools for the next four years, starting in April, the ward said.

Three of the five members of the education board voted to support the contentious textbook.

"Fuso Publishing Inc.'s textbook faithfully follows the Education Ministry's curriculum guidelines, which stipulate the importance of fostering love for the country and ancestors," said board member Kimio Miyasaka, who manages a kindergarten in Suginami.

But Yumi Yasumoto, another board member and a former president of a council of parent-teacher associations for public elementary schools in the ward, opposed using the text.

While the textbook emphasizes that Japanese soldiers fought well in the war, it refers little to the suffering of the general public, including the loss of family members, she said.

The Japan Times Weekly: Aug. 20, 2005
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