Tokyo Medical Univ. Lowers Female Applicants’ Entrance Exam Scores

August 3, 2018

Tokyo- Tokyo Medical University lowered scores of all female applicants in its general entrance examination for its School of Medicine held in February this year, informed sources said Thursday.

The university is expected to announce the result of its investigation into the case as early as next week, together with findings from its internal probe into a bribery case that has led to the indictment of its former top two executives, the sources said.

The university is believed to have started the practice of cutting the entrance exam scores of all female applicants by around 2011, according to the sources.

One source said that the university wants more male students than female students as many women leave their jobs due to marriage or childbirth.

The fiscal 2018 general entrance exam had 1,596 male applicants and 1,018 female applicants. Of them, 141 men passed the second-stage test and were admitted to the school, while the number of successful female applicants stood at only 30.

"An entrance examination that is held in a way to discriminate against women should never be tolerated," education minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said at a press conference on Thursday.

He said his ministry will consider its response after receiving a report over the matter from the university.

Late last month, public prosecutors indicted Masahiko Usui, former chairman of the university's board of regents, and Mamoru Suzuki, former president of the private institution, without arrest on suspicion of bribing Futoshi Sano, former director-general of the education ministry's Science and Technology Policy Bureau.

Sano allegedly received the bribe in return for giving favorable treatment to the university over the ministry's subsidy program for private universities.

Usui and Suzuki are suspected of fraudulently helping Sano's son pass the university's February 2018 entrance exam, by bumping up his scores, an act believed by the prosecutors to have constituted bribery. Sano has also been indicted, for suspected bribe-taking. Jiji Press