academic prowess

教科書が再び厚くなることの背景にあるものを英語で読んでみましょう。すべてはacademic prowessがslide downしたということへの危機意識が根底にあります。（camel）
Japan fattens textbooks to reverse sliding rank
By Malcolm Foster, The Associated Press
TOKYO — When Mio Honzawa starts fifth grade next April, her textbooks will be thicker. Alarmed that its children are falling behind those in rivals such as South Korea and Hong Kong, Japan is adding about 1,200 pages to elementary school textbooks. The textbooks across all subjects for six years of elementary school now total about 4,900 pages, and will go up to nearly 6,100. In a move that has divided educators and experts, Japan is going back to basics after a 10-year experiment in "pressure-free education," which encouraged more application of knowledge and less rote memorization.
"I think it's a good move. Compared to the education I got, I'm kind of shocked at the level my children are receiving," said Keiko Honzawa, a Tokyo resident and mother of Mio and her seventh-grade brother. Japan's near-the-top rank on international standardized tests has fallen, stunning this nation where education has long been a source of pride.
The textbook debate mirrors one in the U.S., where new Common Core State Standards for math and English adopted by 37 states aim to strike a balance between teaching content and how to use that knowledge in everyday life and unify different state requirements. In both countries, sliding scores on tests such as the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, given every three years to 15-year-olds around the world, have helped drive changes in educational guidelines.
For Japan, the debate reflects a deeper anxiety as the country struggles to find direction in a world where its influence has waned. Its once-powerful — and now stagnant — economy has been overtaken by China's, and political leaders are grappling with how to deal with a bulging national deficit and an aging, shrinking population.
Signs that Japan's academic prowess is sliding have added to the consternation. Furthermore, the number of Japanese students studying abroad has fallen.
続きは次のURLへ。
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-09-06-japan-thicker-textbooks_N.htm