Struggling Japanese Students Find Challenges in Essay-style Exams
In the recently concluded fiscal 2025 national achievement test, a significant concern has arisen regarding the performance of junior high school third-graders in Japan, particularly in the Japanese-language section. The test, which was held across approximately 28,000 schools nationwide and participated by a total of around 1.9 million students, revealed that the average correct answer rate for description-type questions was a low 25.6%.
This low performance is primarily attributed to the difficulties students face in expressing their thoughts clearly and understandably in writing. The overall correct answer rate for the Japanese language section among junior high third-graders dropped to 54.6%, the lowest since the current question format was introduced in 2019, with particular struggles in writing tasks.
The test results indicate that these challenges are centered on the ability to write responses that communicate ideas in a manner others can understand. This trend is consistent with a broader struggle among students in Japanese language and other subjects such as math and science, where overall rates also declined.
Interestingly, the gender gap in the Japanese-language subject was evident in the test results. More girls than boys in both grades said that they are good at the Japanese-language subject, like it, and understand it well. Furthermore, female students in both elementary school sixth grade and junior high school third grade gave more correct answers to Japanese-language questions than their male counterparts.
The ministry released test results by gender for the first time in the fiscal 2025 national achievement test. The test was for both elementary school sixth-graders and junior high school third-graders. The fiscal 2025 achievement test was held in April.
The struggles observed among students with questions that required them to write their thoughts in a way that others can understand suggest a need for enhanced instructional focus on written expression skills in junior high education. As the globalised world places increasing emphasis on effective communication, it is crucial that Japanese students develop the ability to articulate their thoughts clearly in writing.
- To address the poor performance of junior high school third-graders in Japan, particularly in the Japanese-language section, there is a pressing need to refine education-and-self-development programs focusing on written expression skills as personal-growth and learning have shown to be essential in our globalized world.
- Given the gender gap in the Japanese-language subject and the emphasis on effective communication in the globalized world, it might be pertinent for education policies to consider incorporating photo-based learning tools that foster personal-growth and learning, especially for girls, to improve their writing abilities and enhance their overall performance in the Japanese language.
