75% Of Japanese Students Have No Idea Where Iraq Is
TOKYO, March 19 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Only 26 percent of Japanese high school students were able to correctly locate where Iraq is on a map, despite considerable media attention given to it in Japan while Japanese troops were providing postwar reconstruction aid, a survey by an academic society of geographers showed Wednesday.
The Association of Japanese Geographers stressed that this and other results show the need to improve geography in schools.
The survey also showed that only 38 percent of the students identified Switzerland correctly and 30 percent identified Vietnam, according to the survey released by the association’s Commission on Geographic Education.
In its second survey following the first one in 2005, the commission surveyed a total of 6,159 students at 51 high schools in Tokyo and six other prefectures, and 3,747 students at 31 universities and colleges across Japan from last December to February to check their geographic knowledge.
The United States was the most familiar country as 84 percent of the students knew where it is.
Iraq was the least familiar country to the surveyed university students, with only 50 percent correctly locating it on a map. Iraq was followed by Finland, which was correctly located by 63 percent of the students.
Students were also tested on Japanese geography. More than half of the surveyed high school students failed to pinpoint the location of Miyazaki Prefecture, despite its widespread popularity and media attention given to its TV personality-turned-governor, Hideo Higashikokubaru.
Miyazaki was recognized by 43 percent of the high school students, the lowest among the 10 prefectures picked for the survey. Tokyo was best known among them. Yet, seven percent did not even know where Tokyo is, according to the survey.
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