The administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has set an admirable goal of including women more fully into the workplace. So far, though, that intention has produced few positive gains. One small advance may offer a glimmer of hope. The number of women in school managerial positions, such as principals, presidents or heads of faculty, reached a record 21,827 as of May 1, according to the education ministry.

That upward trend is surely welcome, since the number of women in higher positions in educational institutions continues to be disappointingly low. Women constitute only 23.3 percent of the management positions in education. Among female school officials, 68 were university presidents, up slightly from a year earlier, and 95 were university vice presidents, again more than ever before. However, that still translates to a dismally low 8.7 percent of women in charge at universities and 21.1 percent at junior colleges.

Educational institutions may be slightly less unfair overall than companies in Japan, only 7.4 percent of which have a female president, according to data from the credit research agency Teikoku Databank earlier this year. But the goal of having women in 30 percent of management positions in either education or the economy is still a long way off.