High School Textbooks on "Logical Japanese" Screened for 1st Time

Tokyo, March 29 (Jiji Press)--Japan's education ministry said Tuesday 189 textbooks in eight common subject categories to be used mainly by high school second-graders from April 2023 have passed the ministry's screenings.

The textbooks included ones that were screened for the first time, such as on "ronri kokugo," or logical Japanese language, and "nihonshi tankyu," or exploration of Japanese history.

Many of the new textbooks became thicker as they adopted inquiry learning methods, such as having students write reports and hold discussions under the ministry's policy of promoting so-called active learning to enable students to study proactively and in an in-depth manner.

The national language category will be restructured under new teaching guidelines to be imposed next month.

Specifically, two elective courses--one for nurturing ability in logical writing and critical reading and another for learning literature--will be introduced to replace "gendaibun," or contemporary Japanese.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]