Students’ English skills miss gov’t targets

April 7, 2018

Tokyo- The English skills of students at public junior and senior high schools across Japan failed to reach proficiency levels targeted by the government, the education ministry said in a fiscal 2017 survey on Friday.

The proportion of third-grade junior high school students with English skills equivalent to Grade 3 or higher in the country's popular Eiken English proficiency test rose 4.6 percentage points from the previous year to 40.7 percent, falling short of the 50 percent figure targeted by the government, the ministry said.

The share of high school third-graders with skills equivalent to Grade Pre-2 or higher in the Eiken test rose 2.9 points to 39.3 percent, missing the 50 percent target.

In a separate test designed to measure the four English skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing, the proportion of students who reached targeted proficiency levels stood at between 28.8 percent and 46.8 percent for third-grade junior high school students and between 12.9 percent and 33.6 percent for high school third-graders.

The ministry will collect successful examples and problem cases from municipalities across the country and analyze these in order to come up with improvement measures, an official said.

Grade 3 in the Eiken test is aimed at junior high school graduates and Grade Pre-2 is intended for second-year high school students.

The Japanese government has been carrying out English proficiency surveys to measure progress toward its English education goals.

The fiscal 2017 survey also found that the proportion of teachers with English proficiency equivalent to Grade Pre-1 or higher in the Eiken came to 33.6 percent at junior high schools, up 1.6 points, and 65.4 percent at high schools, up 3.2 points.

The results were lower than government-set targets of 50 percent for junior high school teachers and 75 percent for high school teachers. Jiji Press