Faced with a drastic deterioration in academic performance, the education ministry is set to abandon a decade-old policy of relaxed programs and dramatically increase page counts of elementary school textbooks starting next year.
But experts are split over the new policy, with some arguing that simply increasing the number of textbook pages won't solve the problems confronting schools and students.
"I do have serious doubts . . . about merely increasing" the page count of textbooks, says Koji Kato, a professor emeritus of education at Sophia University.
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