The Education, Science and Technology Ministry has screened and approved 306 textbooks, most of them for first-year high-school students, for use from next spring. Departing from the original screening policy, the ministry has accepted inclusion of topics and concepts beyond the scope of the current courses of study -- a response to criticism that the present curriculum has lowered students' academic achievements. On the other hand, the ministry has strictly imposed government views on politically sensitive issues such as territorial disputes, the Iraq war and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's controversial visits to Yasukuni Shrine.
To better prepare more advanced students for college entrance exams, mathematics and science textbooks were permitted to include topics and concepts beyond the scope of the guidelines, including Hero's formula, acceleration, ions, DNA and the hydrogenolysis of salt.
And in an effort to address complaints about the falling academic performances of less gifted students, textbook writers and publishers incorporated scrupulous and easy-to-understand explanations into textbooks. The number of pages in all textbooks -- foreign languages, Japanese, geography and history, civics, mathematics and science -- have been increased.
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