“Do you agree with Silent Majority?” The Minister of Education and the students' defense on September 2 at 18:26

“I agree with Silent Majority”.

The fact that Masahiko Shibayama of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology made such a tweet about the university entrance examination that will change greatly from the next year is spreading the ripples. (Social Department Education Coverage Reporter Kota Suzuki Soichiro Itumi)

University entrance exams that change drastically

Do you know everyone?

The university entrance common test that will start in January next year will include a written answer to the mark sheet method and a private exam in English.

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology wanted to improve thinking and judgment, as well as English “speaking” and “writing” skills, through this entrance examination reform.

However, although the philosophy is correct, it seems that there are many high school and university officials who are worried about whether the essential examination can be performed fairly and fairly.

Ripple spread by Minister's tweets

Meanwhile, on the night of the 16th of last month, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Minister Shibayama, who promoted this entrance examination reform, tweeted that “silent majority is in favor”.

I think that this means "the majority who agrees to say nothing", that is, "Many people agree with the entrance examination reform". This tweet was retweeted over 800 times in 2 weeks and received a lot of responses.

Most of the contents complained about the minister's tweets. Voices of high school students who are not taking the exam.

Students who speak out

We contacted them to talk directly to the students.

Mr. Otoharu (16), a second-year high school student in Tokyo, was one who questioned the tweets of Minister Shibayama.

Otoharu, who aims to become a science department at a national university. It was said that Mr. Shibayama's post was witnessed when he was worried about the entrance examination that would change significantly next year.

“You know that your anxiety and dissatisfaction will not be heard. The majority of people do n’t care about how annoying you are, so they do n’t care about you. I felt very sad and angry. ”(Otoharu)

Otoharu continues to call on the Minister to hear the voices of high school students.

“For high school students, the existence of a minister is something on the cloud, even if he knows for some reason ... Even if there is no way to deliver voices in a public place, I realized that it is great to leave the facts that were sent by SNS alone. (Mr. Otoharu)

In Okinawa, there were high school students who responded to the Twitter of the minister. I'm Masa in my second year of high school. Listening to the story, I was worried about the English private exam, which will begin in April next year, in the new examination system.

“First of all, it costs money to take the exam. I think there will be a gap between students living in urban areas and local students because there are limited venues in rural areas.”

Certainly, private examinations vary depending on the company, but the examination fee of 5800 yen to 25,000 yen will be charged once.

As Mr. Miya says, the burden is not small.

Furthermore, as Mr. Masaru said, as the minister said, he questioned, “Do you really agree with the silent majority?”, And started signing on the net against the entrance exam reform. Then, over two thousand signatures were collected in two weeks.

Mr. Masa spoke for the voices of his friends who complained of plight as follows.

“Surely the voices of each student may be small, but I would like to continue to speak out that something strange as a party is strange.”

I asked Mr. Shibayama directly

I met students and listened to questions, and I was wondering why the minister was able to say that silent majority was in favor of a new university entrance examination that had been pointed out.

This seems to have to listen directly. I heard it at a conference after the cabinet meeting last week.

Reporter:
First, the minister's opinion using Twitter, what do you think about this?

Minister Shibayama:
“When I send information via Twitter, it ’s very timely and I ca n’t see all of the opinions I ’ve received, but I can see many of them. I think it ’s a meaningful tool. ”

The minister says that Twitter is an effective forum for dialogue. How about this?

Reporter:
Isn't there a lot of disagreement about the minister's tweets?

Minister Shibayama:
“In fact, it ’s clear from my rule of thumb that there are so many critical opinions when you give us your comments on Twitter. Of course, we would like to refer to these (opposite) opinions as well, but we have made careful decisions based on various policy statistics and so on. Regarding the operation, the survey conducted by the Asahi Shimbun also showed that many of the parents were in favor of it. I want to go. "

To sum up the minister's story, Twitter's opinions tend to be critical. The reason why Silent Majority was in favor was that it was the result of a newspaper company's questionnaire.

By the way, if you look at the survey results of the Asahi Shimbun (April 5, 2018 digital article), you will find four skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing in English during university entrance examinations. As for “measuring”, 54.7% of respondents answered “Yes” or “Yes”.

Expert "Respect for each other's position"

The exchange between the minister and the students on this entrance examination on Twitter.

I heard how experts who are familiar with SNS see.

I am Shinichi Yamaguchi, a lecturer at International University GLOCOM.
Mr. Yamaguchi says, “In social media, discussions can be held on an equal and flat level, beyond the positions of ministers and high school students. I think it is one way of democracy in the information society.”

On the other hand, he points out that politicians need to be careful when using SNS.

`` People such as politicians have many followers, and if you send a word or context that seems to be easy-going, the other person's `` private person '', in this case the examinee will unintentionally become a `` public person '', and some people It carries the risk of being subject to strong criticism and offensive, and withering to express frank opinions that it may be exposed. Yamaguchi)

Lastly, Mr. Yamaguchi advised that there are rules that should be adhered to in discussions through SNS.

“At SNS, people tend to choose only what they want to see and form a community with just like-minded people. People who are in the opposite position are mistaken to sharpen their thoughts. I don't want the politicians and the people to be respectful of each other.

The university entrance exam reform is finally starting. We will continue to report. Please send your opinions and ideas to the following address.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/contents/newspost/form.html