Letters to the Editor,
The Daily Yomiuri,
6-17-1 Ginza,
Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-8243
Education Minister Yoshiaki Takaki must have a droll sense of humor to say about the recent cheating episode at Kyoto University, “This deed has greatly damaged the credibility of university entrance exams, which should be fair and just” (“Police start probe into exam breach,” March 1, 2011). Surely a fair argument can be made that Japan’s education system is broken and useless and that entrance exams are more the problem than the solution. Imagining them to be “credible” and using words like “fair” and “just” to describe them is a real hoot! It’s comical to see the excitement caused among administrators, the media and now the police by the leak of entrance exam questions to the internet. The episode causes many others just to shrug their shoulders.
School is more about schooling than education. That’s why it’s called that. Education is something different that usually happens despite school than because of it. And it’s sad but true that more often than not cheating is the most creative thing students learn to do at school.