TEPCO needs solid leadership to handle nuclear crisis
Tokyo Electric Power Co. President Masataka Shimizu has temporarily relinquish his office, just as it has become apparent that work to cope with the accident at the company's Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant will take a long time.
TEPCO's remaining management officials must do their best to bring the nuclear disaster under control as soon as possible--among other things, they must smoothly implement planned power outages and deal with compensation issues in the future.
Shimizu's health reportedly failed due to the strain of dealing with the ongoing accident. He was absent from work from March 16 to 22.
He seemed to have recovered but felt ill again Tuesday evening and was admitted to the hospital. As a result, TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata will lead the company for the time being.
It is not desirable for the top management official to be replaced, even temporarily, while serious problems are occurring.
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Heavy responsibility
A former TEPCO president forced back onto the front lines of management, Katsumata bears a heavy responsibility. At his Wednesday press conference, Katsumata expressed his view that the troubled Nos. 1 to 4 reactors at the Fukushima plant would have to be decommissioned.
Experts had already said abandoning the Nos. 1 to 4 reactors was inevitable, after seawater was used to cool spent nuclear fuel rods and other parts of the reactors. Katsumata's statement made this a definite reality.
It is now uncertain whether TEPCO can restart the remaining two reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, four reactors at the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power station, and three suspended reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture.
TEPCO's management must seriously study how to handle nuclear power generation in the future.
Also at the Wednesday news conference, Katsumata said top priority should be given to recovering the cooling functions of the Nos. 1 to 4 reactors.
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Disposal of contaminated water
However, a very serious problem is hampering the work--water contaminated with high concentrations of radioactive substances has been found in the facility. TEPCO has been pumping the contaminated water into tanks within the plant, but they can only hold so much. If the situation continues, the contaminated water will probably overflow into the ground and the sea.
Various proposals have emerged to deal with this possibility, including digging reservoirs, storing contaminated water aboard large tankers and constructing facilities to purify the water.
The government and TEPCO need to decide on concrete measures to deal with the contaminated water as soon as possible and implement them. For that purpose, it is indispensable for the two parties to rebuild a relationship of trust.
Many in the government now distrust TEPCO, due to such things as delays in providing information on the accident. A joint task force headquarters was established within TEPCO at the government's initiative, because the government had become impatient with TEPCO's handling of the nuclear disaster.
TEPCO officials also are dissatisfied with the government, feeling it gave instructions that seemed to ignore the circumstances at the plant. Katsumata must foster closer communication with the government to ensure both sides do their best to get the nuclear crisis under control.
Give appropriate guidance to enhance desire to learn
How can teachers fully utilize the new, thicker textbooks? This is where they must show their skill. We hope the new texts will arouse in children a desire to learn and raise their academic abilities.
The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry has unveiled the results of its screening of textbooks that will be used in middle schools next spring. The results are in line with a new curriculum that will significantly increase the contents of what children are taught, changes that were made after reviewing the more lenient education policy.
The textbooks that were screened have 36 percent more pages on average than those screened for fiscal 2000, and 25 percent more than those for fiscal 2004, when "advanced materials" that went beyond the regular course of study were introduced in the textbooks.
Teachers must tap their ingenuity to put these textbooks to use fully and to prevent students from having an imperfect understanding of the subjects.
The science textbooks, for instance, have expanded descriptions of experiments and observations, and also encourage students to make reports on their studies and present their results. To arouse students' interest, the new texts have examples to illustrate how science is actually used in real life.
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Painstaking effort evident
It is evident the authors worked hard to keep students from stumbling in their learning process.
For instance, before moving on to the next unit, there are pages reviewing what has been learned earlier in the book. There are also pages where students are given a chance to practice calculations that were taught in primary school. Some textbooks allocate more than 10 percent of their pages to these kind of drills. The textbooks also carry more difficult practical exercises for more proficient students.
"We tried to make a textbook that both low-level and top-level students can use to improve their academic abilities," said an official of a textbook publisher.
When teaching the materials in the new texts, teachers must grasp each student's level of understanding and use this to give appropriate guidance. To do this well, they should take multiple training courses to brush up on their teaching methods.
Under the new curriculum, course hours for the main subjects will increase by more than 10 percent. At-home studies must also be fully utilized to help students learn properly. Many of the new texts carry practice exercises students can do on their own, and parents are also asked to cooperate.
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Territorial issues addressed
The new social studies textbooks carry expanded descriptions of Japan's territory, including details on the Takeshima islets and the Senkaku Islands.
The government's position is that there is a dispute over the sovereignty of the Takeshima islets, which are occupied by South Korea, but that there is no territorial dispute with China over the Senkaku Islands, which are controlled by Japan.
Government textbook examiners required textbook descriptions that do not reflect this policy difference be modified.
Last year, a Chinese trawler rammed into two Japan Coast Guard patrol vessels off the Senkaku Islands, an incident that sent shock waves through the Japanese public.
Correct information concerning our territory should be taught to our children so they can properly assert Japan's position in the international community.
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