ASIA NIKKEI
 
A new standardized entrance exam for Japanese universities may take into account high school students' performance on international tests of English-language proficiency.
 
     The Education Ministry is considering replacing the grueling two-day, multisubject National Center Test for University Admissions with a new examination in the spring of 2021.
 
     When measuring student proficiency in English, the current test emphasizes reading and listening at the expense of writing and speaking. Critics see this as a cause of Japanese people's generally poor grasp of the language.
 
     The new exam should evaluate applicants' English-language abilities "in a well-balanced manner, including writing and speaking," a ministry council writes in a draft report unveiled Friday. The council had not expressed such a view before. Its proposals for assessing these skills include written-response questions, interviews, and the use of such independent exams as the Toefl, the Test of English as a Foreign Language.
 
     The ministry will consider whether to create questions that evaluate writing and speaking proficiency in a manner similar to independent exams or to let applicants simply take tests like the Toefl.