Japanese students begin to learn kanji from their first year at elementary school. A guideline created by the Japanese Ministry of Education, the list of "kyōiku kanji" ("education kanji", a subset of "jōyō kanji"), specifies the 1,006 simple characters a child is to learn by the end of sixth grade. Children continue to study another 1,130 characters in junior high school, covering in total 2,136 "jōyō kanji". The official list of "jōyō kanji" was revised several times, but the total number of officially sanctioned characters remained largely unchanged.