Japan curriculum

Overview

Japan's school system runs on a single national track set by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT): 6 years of elementary school, 3 years of junior high school, and 3 years of senior high school, commonly described as the "6-3-3" structure. The first 9 years, elementary plus junior high, are compulsory education, free of tuition at public schools. Senior high school is not compulsory, but admission to it depends on a separate gatekeeping process, koukou nyushi (high school entrance examinations), taken at the end of junior high school; admission to university after senior high depends on another separate gatekeeping process, university entrance examinations. Both are administered outside day-to-day school assessment and are covered in their own programme files. This file covers the underlying school structure, MEXT's national curriculum standards (gakushu shido yoryo), and how schools assess students term by term.

Who it covers

Every child resident in Japan is required to complete the 9-year compulsory stage: elementary school (小学校, shougakkou) followed by junior high school (中学校, chuugakkou). The school year starts in April; children normally enrol in elementary school at age 6 and move to junior high at age 12. There is no entrance exam for either compulsory stage — a child is placed in their local public elementary or junior high school by catchment area, though families may instead choose a private or national-university-affiliated school, some of which do set their own entrance tests.

Senior high school (高等学校, koukou), covering roughly ages 15 to 18, is optional in law but close to universal in practice: MEXT figures put the advancement rate from junior high to some form of senior high schooling at around 98%. A place depends on passing koukou nyushi, whose own structure (recommendation-based versus general admission, and public prefectural versus private-school routes) is covered in its own programme file and not repeated here.

Structure

Elementary school (小学校)

Six years of compulsory schooling covering Japanese language, arithmetic, science, social studies, music, arts and crafts, physical education, moral education, and, from grade 3 onward under the current curriculum cycle, foreign language activities (typically English). Promotion from one grade to the next is managed by the school itself; there is no exam gate within elementary school.

Junior high school (中学校)

Three years continuing compulsory education at a deeper level: Japanese, mathematics, science, social studies, English as a formal examined subject, health and physical education, music, art, technology and home economics, and moral education. Junior high school ends with koukou nyushi, which decides which senior high school, and which course within it, a student is admitted to next; koukou nyushi's own subjects, format and timing are covered in its own programme file.

Senior high school (高等学校)

Three years, not compulsory, split across three broad course types that MEXT recognises nationally: general courses (普通科), aimed at students headed either to further study or to work with no fixed specialism; specialised courses (専門学科), built around a vocational or subject specialism such as agriculture, industry, commerce, fishery, home economics, nursing, science-mathematics, physical education, music, art or English; and integrated courses (総合学科), introduced in 1994, which mix subjects from both the general and specialised lists so a student can choose across them. Graduation is credit-based rather than a single end-of-course exam. Students headed to university on completing senior high sit university entrance examinations, covered in their own programme files.

Curriculum standards

MEXT sets what is taught at every stage through the gakushu shido yoryo (学習指導要領, national curriculum guidelines), a single standard issued for elementary, junior high and senior high school alike, laying out the objectives and content for each subject at each grade. It is notified under the School Education Law Enforcement Regulations and functions as a binding minimum rather than a suggestion; MEXT separately publishes a non-binding commentary (学習指導要領解説) explaining each revision. The guidelines are typically revised roughly once a decade.

The current cycle was announced in 2017 for elementary and junior high school and in 2018 for senior high school, and phased in grade by grade: fully in force in elementary schools from April 2020, in junior high schools from April 2021, and in senior high schools from April 2022. Among its changes: foreign language activities now start in grade 3 of elementary school rather than grade 5, and senior high school gained reorganised subjects such as "Public" (公共), a civics-focused subject, and new "comprehensive exploration" subjects aimed at inquiry-based learning. A central theme across all three stages in this cycle is what MEXT calls active, independent and interactive deep learning.

Assessment approach

Day-to-day assessment in Japanese schools is continuous and set by each school, separate from koukou nyushi and university entrance examinations. Under the current curriculum cycle, MEXT asks schools to assess every subject against three perspectives: knowledge and skills; thinking, judgement and expression; and attitude toward learning (the student's own engagement with it). A school's official cumulative record of this is the shidou youroku (指導要録), and the report card families actually receive each term, the tsuuchihyou (通知表), is built from it.

In elementary and junior high school this usually shows as a three-level mark against each of the three perspectives per subject, rather than one combined score. In senior high school, assessment is more commonly expressed as a numeric grade per subject (often on a 5-point scale), still built from a student's ongoing coursework and each school's own internally set tests judged against the same three perspectives. There is no single nationwide test that produces a senior high student's term grades; each school sets and marks its own.

After school

Completing junior high school and sitting koukou nyushi is what decides a student's senior high placement — and which of the general, specialised or integrated course types they enter. Completing senior high school then opens several paths: direct employment, a specialised training college (専修学校, senshuu gakkou), or university or junior college by way of university entrance examinations. Full detail on both gatekeeping processes, including subjects, timing and scoring, is in their own programme files (koukou nyushi; university entrance examinations).

Preparation tips

• Check which course type a target senior high school offers — general, specialised or integrated — well before koukou nyushi, since it shapes the subjects available for the following three years.

• Track which cycle of the gakushu shido yoryo applies to a student's grade, since subject timing has shifted in the current cycle (for example, foreign language activities now starting in elementary grade 3 rather than grade 5).

• Treat koukou nyushi and university entrance examinations as separate, later checkpoints with their own detailed requirements — consult their dedicated programme files when the time comes rather than this overview.

• Confirm senior-high admission rules with the relevant prefecture (for public schools) or the school itself (for private schools), since koukou nyushi is organised locally, not as one national exam.