- Two prestigious medical schools in Tokyo admitted rigging admission requirements in favor of male applicants last year.
- Juntendo University said it set lower exam pass marks for men, and Tokyo Medical University said it systematically lowered women’s test scores to keep the number of female students below 30% of the total number.
- Both abolished those practices last year. Women immediately outperformed men in entrance in this year’s entrance exams.
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After two top Japanese medical schools stopped rigging admission requirements to favor male students, women immediately outperformed men in entrance exams.
The private Juntendo University in Tokyo, which last year admitted setting lower exam pass marks for men, said on Monday that 8.28% of female applicants passed this year’s entrance exams, compared to 7.72% of their male counterparts, The Asahi Shimbun reported.
139 out of the 1,679 female applicants that took the test passed, while 170 out of 2,202 male applicants passed, Asahi said.
The university directly attributed the higher female success rate to its leveling entrance requirements for men.
"This is a result of abolishing the unfair treatment of female applicants and repeat applicants," it said in a statement, cited by Asahi.
Last month the prestigious Tokyo Medical University also reported that women outperformed men in its entrance exams after it admitted that it systematically reduced its admissions test scores for women.
20.2% of all female applicants passed the university's medical exams, compared to 19.8% of male applicants,, according to The Japan Times. Last year just 2.9% of women passed, compared to 9% of men, the newspaper said.
In the past, Tokyo Medical University reportedly lowered the number of female entrants to ensure they made up less than 30% of the student body, The Yomiuri Shimbun reported at the time.
Anonymous sources told Yomiuri that officials had used an equation to keep female numbers down since 2011, and that the school invented the quota because they believed women would benefit less from the training as they often leave professional life to have children.
Read more: A medical school in Tokyo reportedly altered its admissions test scores to keep women out
Hiroyuki Daida, dean of Juntendo's medical school, told a press conference last December that the university lowered entrance requirements for men because "women mature faster mentally."
He said that women tend to perform better in interviews - which are part of Juntendo's admission process - so the university lowered entrance exam pass marks as "a measure to help" men.
"Women mature faster mentally than men and their communication ability is also higher," Daida said, as cited by Asahi. "In some ways, this was a measure to help male applicants."
Juntendo officials also said at the time that because there was limited space in the female dormitories, the school needed to limit the number of female students.
It's not clear how many male and female dorms there were at the school, and whether it has since increased the number of female dorms.
Officials from Kitasato University, another medical school in Tokyo, also admitted to rigging entrance exam scores for men last year.
They did not provide a reason, but admitted to prioritizing male applicants on its website, Asahi reported at the time. Kitasato said it would set up a third-party committee to figure out next steps.
Women make up just 21% of all Japan's doctors, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare said in 2016.
That is the lowest proportion of female-to-male doctors among all 36 countries in the the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the non-profit Nippon Communication Foundation said.
Despite the medical schools' changes, Japan still has a lot of work to do to ensure gender equality.
Earlier this month Takumi Nemoto - Japan's male Health, Labor and Welfare Minister - defended the country's controversial policies requiring women to wear high heels in the workplace, saying it is "necessary and reasonable."
