The Japanese government urged a medical university to promptly disclose the results of an investigation into its admissions process following reports that it had altered the test scores of female applicants for years to deny them entry and ensure fewer women became doctors.
The manipulation started at Tokyo Medical University after the share of successful female applicants reached 38 percent of the total in 2010, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported on Thursday, citing unidentified sources.
Subsequent reports said the alterations might have started even earlier.
Japan Broadcasting Corp reported that the manipulation in some years had removed as much as 10 percent of women whose true scores merited acceptance, adding up to perhaps hundreds of denials for nearly a decade due to systematic discrimination.
On Friday night, dozens of people gathered outside the university holding banners and posters with messages such as “Protest against sexist entrance exams,” and “You trampled on the efforts and lives of women who trusted and chose you.”
Social networks were flooded with angry messages.
“We have seen shutters come down right in front of us just because we are women, and we should not let our younger generations go through the same horrible experience,” tweeted Minori Kitahara, a writer and feminist activist who was at the rally.
Nearly half of women in Japan are college graduates — among the highest numbers in the world — but they often face discrimination in the workforce.
Women are considered responsible for homemaking, childrearing and elderly care, while men are expected to work long hours and outside care services are limited.
The school’s public affairs department said it had no knowledge of the reported manipulation, but is investigating.
The school is already facing a separate scandal involving the inappropriate admission of a top education bureaucrat’s son and was ordered by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to investigate its admissions records for the past six years.
The school on Thursday said it will combine the examination of the score manipulation allegation with that probe.
The report from the school’s investigation can be expected sometime next week, the ministry said.
The share of female doctors who have passed the national medical exam has stayed at about 30 percent for more than 20 years, prompting speculation that interference in admissions is widespread at Japanese medical schools.
The report sparked outrage across Japan and criticism from Cabinet officials.
Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications Seiko Noda on Friday told reporters that she is taking the alleged wrongdoing “extremely seriously.”
“Any admissions process that wrongfully discriminates against women is absolutely not acceptable,” Noda said. “It is extremely important to improve the working environment so that women can pursue their medical professions.”
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
RSS