The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) presented at a meeting of experts on August 8 a plan to abolish the paper-based National Achievement Test (NAT) for all sixth-grade and ninth-grade students in Japan, and to shift to a new format (CBT) in which questions and answers are given online using PC terminals, starting in FY2027. A formal decision will be made in the fall.
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has already decided to preemptively implement CBT in junior high school science courses in FY2013. The proposed policy is to introduce CBT in junior high school English in FY26, and to expand it to all subjects in FY27 and beyond.
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) sees the following as advantages: (1) new question formats using video and audio will be possible, (2) a different set of questions can be assigned to each student, thereby expanding the range of data collection, and (3) printing and shipping costs for question booklets can be reduced. The company believes that this will make it possible to compare changes in student achievement from year to year, which will also lead to improvements in teaching.
The achievement test covers approximately 2 million elementary and junior high school students nationwide.
