Ministry knew of curriculum shortfalls years ago

The education ministry knew more than four years ago that 16 percent of university students had not taken high school world history, a compulsory subject, sources said Wednesday.

That figure is from a ministry-commissioned survey conducted between 2001 and 2002 of about 33,000 postsecondary students nationwide.

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has claimed repeatedly, including once in the Diet, that the problem was only found in a few prefectures, so it did not conduct a nationwide investigation.

The survey, led by professor Haruo Yanai at St. Luke's College of Nursing, was conducted between November 2001 and February 2002 to gauge student academic preferences. Respondents studying in 600 academic departments at 408 public and private universities were polled.

In the survey, 5,400 students admitted they had not taken world history in high school. The subject became compulsory in the school year that started in April 1994.

According to the survey, 31 percent in dental schools and 26 percent in medical schools said they had not taken the subject. Twenty-three percent of the students at national universities and 13 percent of those at private universities said they did not study the subject.

"We compiled the results in a booklet and sent about 30 copies to the ministry, but because the curriculum issue was not the main subject of the survey, it drew little attention at the time," Yanai said.

The issue of high schools not offering world history and other compulsory classes first surfaced between 1999 and 2002 in several prefectures, including Kumamoto, Hyogo and Hiroshima.

The ministry only said the national curriculum guidelines had to be followed in 2002 and 2003 at national conferences of boards of education.

The current curriculum problem surfaced in October when it was discovered that several prefectures, including Toyama and Iwate, were not teaching all of the compulsory subjects, leading the ministry to conduct a nationwide investigation.

The ministry found that students at 540 high schools -- 10 percent of all schools -- were not being taught all the subjects required.