By Yusuke Yamada

From this year a five-day week system started at every public school in April, 2002. According to the Ministry of Education and Science, "this new education system aims to rear Japanese rich in humanity and sociability who can contribute to the development of the international society, and also this system aims to increase students ability to learn and think by themselves and to substantiate the education which satisfies their individuality."

Since the new system was introduced, how have schools dealt with it and how are students and teachers under it changing? In order to know the present situation, I interviewed a junior high school teacher in the suburbs of Sapporo.

First, I asked how his school is coping with the new system. The teacher explained, "There is no class on Saturday under the complete five-day week system. It means class hours are reduced, so each teacher has to make efforts to make better classes to compensate for the reduced classes; working out useful, interesting and understandable teaching materials, and preparing handouts, etc.

However, they still need to reduce the hours for school events to secure more time for teaching, and they need to supplement the reduced class hours by increasing elective subjects. Though cutting teaching materials by one-third might cause students' scholastic level to decline in the future, now teachers cannot afford to focus on that.

He said that the government guidelines for teaching are limited to the minimum, and the school can supplement any amount. But the problem is the higher they aim, the lower the flexibility becomes. It is difficult to make both a "flexible education" and high scholastic ability compatible. This school is lucky, as two extra teachers are assigned for English and Mathematics at the same time with the new system. They divided the freshman's class into half-sized ones, so the teacher can take care of each student better and those small size classes seem to bring good effects.

Second, I asked about club activities. Almost every club has club activities on Saturday, but they have a regular holiday with no club activities one Saturday a month, unless there are games or matches.

He said that perhaps it is teachers who have to change and who are changing. The time has come when teachers must have a meeting among themselves about class matters, have better communication with each other, exchange teaching materials, and it is also a time when teachers' true ability as educators are demanded. With an increase in their work load, there are some teachers who stay at school till midnight and sometimes even until morning. The introduction of the five-day week allows them to have flexible Saturdays, but in reality they must spend the day like any other weekday. So the teachers' work seems to have become more difficult.

On the other hand, according to the Hokkaido Shinbun, junior high school students say that under the new system, they have six classes every weekday, so there is less flexibility than before.

It will be a long time until this new system is firmly established and appreciated.