JAPANESE WOMEN.

Shannon News, 19 February 1929, Page 2

JAPANESE WOMEN.

SEEK’COEDUCATION. A campaign to gain for women in Japan equal education facilities with men has been launched by the 100 women who are allowed to attend Nihon University as visitors. Coeducation is being insisted upon, at least until exclusive women’s universities are created and sufficient preparatory schools for them established.

Many universities in Japan admit women to their classrooms as visitors, but they are not regarded as students, obtain no credit for their work and are not given degrees upon completion of the course. The women naturally regard this situation as unfair.

“Education for men alone does not make for a healthy nation,” says Miss Tsuru Abayashi, one of the leaders in the movement. “It is only through full education equality between the sexes that such a state is realised. Many educators believe that young men and young women in Japan are not yet sufficiently trained in social intercourse and that it is dangerous to throw them suddenly together at a susceptible age. Young people here are fundamentally no different from those in other countries where coeducation is successful. It is only fair that we should be given a fair trial,”