Japanese education ministry completes its first screening of textbooks under new teaching guidelines

The education ministry said Tuesday it has completed its first screening of new textbooks under new teaching guidelines that are planned to be fully implemented from April 2021, approving 106 textbooks in 10 subjects. The average number of pages for a batch of textbooks approved to be used by junior high school students starting in fiscal 2021 rose 7.6 percent from that for current textbooks, the ministry said. The total number of textbook pages exceeded 11,000 in A5 format at the time of applications. The new teaching guidelines place importance on active learning methods, in which students learn proactively through debates and other learning activities, in order to nurture their intellectual ability to find and resolve problems themselves. For this purpose, many of the new textbooks present learning challenges at the outset of chapters and subchapters, and encourage students to have debates in groups after the end of the sections to deepen their understanding.