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Only 0.03 Pct of Japanese Students to Use Controversial Textbook
Only 0.03 percent of all junior high school students in Japan will use a controversial history textbook written by a group of Japanese nationalist scholars in their classrooms next spring, according to a Kyodo News survey released Thursday.
Not a single municipal government-run or state-run junior high school in the country adopted the textbook, compiled by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform and published by Fuso Publishing Inc.
The percentage is far below the 10 percent share the society aimed to gain of all junior high school students in Japan. The deadline for book choices by local boards of education or private and state-run schools was Wednesday.
The textbook, for use in next April, the beginning of the school year, has drawn strong criticism from China and South Korea for distorting history and justifying Japan's past aggression against its Asian neighbors.
Kyodo compiled statistics from municipal boards of education in 542 districts that choose textbooks for public junior high schools as well as from prefectural boards of education that select textbooks for special schools, such as schools for handicapped children. The Japanese news agency also surveyed state-run and private schools, both of which choose textbooks independently.
The survey found only two schools for disabled children in Tokyo and four schools for deaf and disabled children in Ehime Prefecture, western Japan, will use the textbook in the next school year. Seven private schools also decided to adopt it.
The number of students at such schools is estimated at about 1, 300, or 0.03 percent of all junior high school students in the country, it showed.
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