B. Obstacles and how they are being overcome

1. Education and training of women

(1) The unbalanced representation of women by field of study

More women study at schools of higher education than boys do. For many years more women studied in junior colleges than universities ( bachelors degree), but in l996 for the first time, the number of women who entered university was larger than those who entered junior college.
That trend continues today.
However, whereas there is a large concentration of women majoring in the humanities, there are fewer women than men who major in the science and engineering fields, though the difference is narrowing year by year.
According to a l998 survey 32.6% of students in the humanities were men, 67.4% women. The ratio of men and women in the sciences was 74.8% and 25.2% respectively, and for engineering 91.0% and 9.0% respectively.) To rectify this situation, high schools are expending efforts to discard the stereotypical way in which they provide educational guidance to students, so that each student can be instilled with the conscious and attitude to seek from a variety of educational opportunities the course that best suits the individual.

(2) Efforts towards promoting a gender-equal perspective

Stereotypical images of the role of women and men in society still prevail today, and influence parents attitudes towards how they educate their children.
To promote gender equality, the government is researching measures to promote home education on the view point of gender equality, and developing the gender equality learning program for social education instructors.
As part of the lifelong learning program offered to teachers, training programs that contribute to respect for human rights and enhancing gender equality at school are being conducted at the National Women's Education Centre.