Tokyo Medical University Alters Women's Entrance Test Scores

Tokyo Medical University (TMU), one of Japan’s most prestigious college, has been revealed to have manipulated the entrance test scores of their female applicants for over a decade since 2006 or earlier. This revelation came as findings regarding recent reports in Japanese media were published by the lawyers involved.

For this year’s entrance exam, all applicants’ test scores were reduced by 20% in the first stage, following which male applicants were awarded at least 20 additional points, with the exception of those who had previous failed the test four times and above. This tampering of scores has been occurring for years since before 2006 and affecting huge numbers of female candidates. It was found that the reason for such manipulation was because the university wanted fewer female doctors, due to the perception that female doctors would have their careers disrupted after childbirth. After the two-round application process this year, 141 male applicants were successfully enrolled, as compared to merely 30 female applicants.

This revelation was met with much anger on social media, with many women expressing the discrimination they faced. One such post included “Women are pitied if they don’t, but Japanese women who are married and working and have kids end up sleeping less than anybody in the world. To now hear that even our skills are suppressed makes me shake with rage.” The manipulation of test scores was deemed “profound sexism” according to lawyer Kenji Nakai.

Initially, the university denied any knowledge of the score alterations, although later apologising for their misdeeds and vowing to prevent such an incident from reoccuring. “We sincerely apologise for the serious wrongdoing involving entrance exams that has caused concern and trouble for many people and betrayed the public’s trust,” the school’s managing director, Tetsuo Yukioka, said. The school promised to consider admissions of those who would otherwise have passed the entrance test but has offered no further explanation of how this would be carried out.

Japanese women often face discrimination in the workforce, being designated the responsibility of childbearing and homemaking. According to recent studies, the percentage of female doctors passing national medical examinations have reached a plateau of about 30%, despite the efforts of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to create a society in which women should not be treated differently because of their gender.

As a country generally regarded as one that hold prejudices against women, female representation in the workplace has increased, although Japan still lags significantly behind other countries. The share of female doctors in Japan stood at 20.3% in 2015, with an even smaller proportion of them in departments associated with long working hours. The government has expressed their strong stance that the discrimination against women was “absolutely unacceptable” and that it was “extremely disturbing” given the fact that the women had failed the entrance exams merely because the university had not wanted to work with female doctors. The ministry of education has declared that Japan plans to examine the admission procedures of all her medical schools.