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To Boost Number Of Male Doctors, University Cuts Women’s Scores

To Boost Number Of Male Doctors, University Cuts Women’s Scores
  • PublishedAugust 2, 2018

Japanese media has revealed that a Tokyo medical school systematically cut women applicant’s entrance exam scores for years to keep them out and boost the numbers of male doctors.

The exam score alterations were discovered in an internal investigation of a graft allegation that emerged this spring over entrance procedures for Tokyo Medical University, the Yomiuri Shimbun daily said.

From 2011, it said, the university began cutting the scores of female applicants to keep the number of women students at about 30 per cent, after the number of successful women entrants jumped in 2010.

The paper quoted university sources as saying the action was prompted by a β€œstrong sense at the school” that many women quit medicine after graduating to get married and have children.

Tokyo Medical University spokesman Fumio Azuma said an internal investigation had already begun after allegations this spring of bribery involving the medical school admission of the son of a seniorΒ official of the education ministry.

β€œOf course, we will ask them to include this in their investigations,” he said, adding that the results of both investigations could come as early as this month.

Social media erupted in anger at the reports, with some posters demanding more steps to ensure equality while others said similar things were happening everywhere.

β€œIt feels as if the earth’s crumbling under my feet,” wrote one. β€œWho are you kidding with β€˜Women
should play an active role’?”

Another said, β€œWomen are told they have to give birth; if they don’t, they’re mocked as being β€˜unproductive’, but then again, just the possibility that they might give birth is used to cut their scores.

β€œWhat’s a woman supposed to do?”

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made creating a society β€œwhere women can shine” a priority, but women still face an uphill battle in employment and hurdles returning to work after having children, in spite of Japan’s falling birthrate.

 

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