Section 4.6: Textbooks and teaching guides

Under the Japanese school system, teachers must use textbooks that have been approved by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. There are six types of mathematics textbooks for elementary and junior high schools and about twenty types, by grade level, for high school. These are published by private publishing companies. The elementary school mathematics textbook, which excludes first grade mathematics, consists of about 100 B5-sized pages divided into two volumes. The junior and senior high school textbooks consist of 100 to 200 A5- or B6-sized pages. In compulsory education, elementary and junior high school level, textbooks for students are distributed for free by the national government. The numbers of pages were restricted by the government and then, they have been compiled to avoid any overlap in the curriculum across different grade levels and to ensure that students can learn all of the necessary content, and complete their practice exercises, in the number of hours allotted for the school year.