TOKYO, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- Tokyo's education board has announced its decision to eliminate the gender quota for admission to full-time public high school programs offering general courses.
This change is set to take effect beginning in the 2024 academic year. A Japanese school year usually commences in April.
The final board in Japan with a quota to ensure equal gender distribution, the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education took the move on Monday in response to criticism that the varying passing requirements for male and female applicants were unfair.
In 2021, the board had already initiated discussions regarding the use of gender quotas for full-time high school programs with general courses. Subsequently, they introduced a new, gender-neutral system to be implemented gradually in the coming years.
Under this revised approach, 10 percent of students in the 2022 academic year and 20 percent in the subsequent year were admitted based solely on their academic rankings.
In contrast to Tokyo, other local school boards in Japan had already made decisions by 2021 to remove the requirement for applicants to specify their gender on admission forms.
Analysts here pointed out that the shift reflected a growing societal recognition of sexual diversity in the country. ■