Meticulous teaching that meets individual needs is required at both elementary and junior high schools.

Ha, eventually! When the rest of the world is now at 20-25 students, Japan is hoping some time in the future to get the numbers down to 30! And what does this genius think teachers are doing now? Meticulous teaching, what the hell does that even mean. Personalized, might have been a better way to put it!

In the meantime, this education minister needs to ‘meticulously’ look at other factors? Seems like Japan’s diminishing population would have balanced the ratio of children-to-teachers.

Perhaps it’s the number of young adults that are no longer interested in joining the ranks of Japan’s teachers ?

And those that are part of the current system need to be thoroughly vetted to eliminate the “bad apples”.

Since when has individual needs ever been part of the J education system? Really? It crushes the individual from day one. This blokes having a laugh.

Given the drastic reduction in the number of high school age students due to Japan's demographic decline, one would think this was something they could have easily accomplished many years ago.

This goon has abviously never taught in a Japanese public school. Monster parents, no disciplinary action, proxy parent teachers and expected high average scores add up to a fast-food like education system. "Welcome to McDonalds. May I take your order?"

With the birthrate falling off a cliff, smaller class sizes can't be that far away. As for quality...

Eventually, eh? Like when the population of the nation drops 27% in the next 10 years due to aging?

I know many people say that teaching is like a calling, but in Japan, you almost have to give up your life for the job. With all the extra hours for club activities, school events, ie. Culture Festival, Sports festival, music festival. You can see why young people are not interested in signing up for that kind of life, and who can blame them.

This is officially the funniest goddamn thing I have seen in months. There hasn't been an education minister in Japan in the 20 years I have been here with a single bloody idea of what it's like to work in public school.

they should do it NOW instead of what they are doing which is closing down schools and abandoning the buildings while merging schools together because of lack of kids.

Class sizes are closely and deliberately regulated to 32~34 students in order to save money by cutting back on active teaching staff. The comments of the Education Minister with respect to "meticulous teaching" (HA! HA!) are nothing more than extraneous window-dressing. Meanwhile, at the local town office BOE Section anywhere in the country, the Head of the Education Department is enjoying his 8,000,000 yen salary (plus 2 yearly bonuses!) while shuffling paperwork and planning the next meeting agenda...

School is somewhere for youngsters to go when their parents go to work. .... and join "club activities".

Reduce to 30?!! 30 students to one teacher? What is this guy on? Forget meticulous teaching; with this massive classroom size the teacher will be lucky to get half of the students to pay attention. Madness.

Also "individual needs"? Japan is all about NOT doing your own thing and just following the crowd. This man needs his head checked. He clearly doesn't have a clue about Japanese public schools.