Japan Times

Japan will refrain from identifying Takeshima — a pair of Seoul-controlled rocky islets in the Sea of Japan known as Dokdo in South Korea — as an "integral part of Japan" in an educational document.

Public schools will be able to organize field trips to Tokyo's war-related Yasukuni Shrine after the government declares null and void a 1949 state-imposed ban.

Fourteen major cities, including Sapporo and Niigata, and eight Tokyo wards have raised school lunch fees this fiscal year, largely due to soaring prices for wheat, milk and other food, according to a Yomiuri Shimbun survey.

The number of children aged 14 or younger in Japan was estimated at 17.25 million as of April 1, marking a record low for the 27th straight year, the government reports.

By ERIC JOHNSTON
Nearly three dozen native English teachers call on Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto not to cancel an education program that places native speakers of English in the prefecture's schools.

By KAZUAKI NAGATA
Twenty Tokyo teachers are punished for disobeying an order to stand and face the flag during the singing of the national anthem in graduation ceremonies in March.

The Kanagawa prefectural education board decides to keep tracking teachers who refuse to stand and sing the "Kimigayo" national anthem.

The government will provide tuition subsidies of up to ¥200,000 each to some 4,000 students orphaned by the Nova bankruptcy who enrolled in the language school as part of a state training program.

Two days of unified entrance exams involving a record high 777 universities and colleges kick off at 736 test centers across Japan.

The education ministry plans to place social workers at elementary and junior high schools across the nation to help deal with problems affecting children and families ranging from domestic violence and neglect to bullying.

By KANAKO TAKAHARA
Assistant language teachers, who are native English-language teachers hired to augment English classes in the nation's public schools, are increasingly being provided by temporary staffing agencies and finding themselves on unsteady ground, without health insurance and long-term employment outlooks.

The Textbook Authorization Council approves requests by textbook publishers to reinstate references to the military's role in forcing civilians to commit mass suicide during the 1945 Battle of Okinawa.

G.education, which took over some of failed language school Nova's business, will hire fewer former teachers than it had earlier said and may even slash its ranks in the future.

By KEISUKE OKADA
In this age of globalization, firms and businesspeople must compete with their rivals on a worldwide scale. This is also spreading to academicians and educational institutions, universities in particular.

A union for Nova employees is calling on students and teachers to meet outside their old schools Saturday so they can find a way to continue classes independently of the failed foreign-language school chain.