Education
Students start at
about age six and go to elementary school for six years. Next, they attend lower secondary school
(a.k.a., Junior High) for three years.
Both of these two are required.
The next stage, upper secondary school (a.k.a., High School) is for
three years and is voluntary, but about 99% of all students go on to this stage
anyway. Next up is higher education, in
which about 50% go on to the university level, which is similar to the U.S.
Education is
highly centralized in Japan, meaning that nearly everything is controlled by
the Ministry of Education (known as MEXT).
MEXT prescribes courses of study, textbooks, pays for books, and pay for
½ of compulsory teacher salaries (other ½ from local authorities). A current debate exists, however, on whether
if local areas should be given the money so that they may make these
decisions. MEXT also organizes training
courses for teachers (10th Year Training Course), subsidizes
construction of school buildings, and runs state universities (87).
The goals of MEXT
are high: zero illiteracy, satisfactory international performance, 50% in
higher education, 98% attendance in upper secondary schools, and 100%
enrollment in lower and elementary schools.
The Japanese are
concerned over some issues in education, however. In international surveys, while Japan scores high in knowledge
level of subjects such as math and science, they rank very low in terms of
those subjects being favorites or doing voluntary study time. In short, they don’t seem to like what
they’re doing; they score well, but don’t like doing it (i.e., in ’99, for
math, Japanese students were 5th in total score of knowledge, but 36th,
or last, in terms of liking it). So
this leads to questions over how well students will continue to perform.
Another issue, it
seems that Japanese children have large amounts of knowledge but lack in the
ability to learn and think by themselves and the ability to apply their
knowledge. Why? Perhaps the excessive competition for
entrance examinations to get to universities.
Moreover,
successive incidents of school violence and bullying are on the rise, meaning
kindness to others, respect of life and human rights may not be sufficiently
fostered in school.
These problems
may exist due to other reasons as well.
Excessive competition for examination, underdeveloped social side and
moral sense, delayed development of independence, and problems concerning
health and physical stamina.
How to fix
this? By trying to educate “creative”
individuals and providing more “diversity” and “flexibility” in their
educational system. In other words,
giving children room to grow and a zest for living. Simply put, Japanese children are far too busy.
As a result, the
numbers of children refusing to attend school has been increasing (i.e., 3% of
elementary students). Some refusing to
attend high schools, largely due to angst regarding high school entrance
examinations (about 2%). Bullying and
violence in school was on the rise as well, especially in lower secondary
schools. However, these numbers
decreased over the past few years, so that may be a good sign, but the numbers
have increased recently, leading to more concerns.
How to fix
this? Trying to nurture a zest for
living. That is, providing students the
ability to identify problems for themselves, learn by themselves, think for
themselves, make independent judgments and actions and solve problems
properly. Essentially, they want
students to be able to do things on their own.
They also focus on the emotional and physical health of students and
also provide more free time and strictly focus on the basic essentials (i.e.,
were essentially over teaching students in the past). Other ideas include trying to implement a five-day school week
and relax the excessive examination competition. Also seen as very important is a focus on teaching compassion for
others. But also need to include
parents into this equation and improve their involvement in their childrens’
lives outside of education.
Ultimately, this
means breaking away from the “uniform education” idea in which uniformity is
most important. Instead, they want to
focus on diversifying things for students and allowing teachers and local
schools to take the initiative (things have been too rigid, so attempt
deregulation of some institutions and give more freedom to local school boards)
in implementing these ideas. At this
point, it seems that these ideas are beginning to work. But time will ultimately tell.
Lecture Given By:
Tsutomu Kimura
President,
National Institution for Academic Degrees
Vice Chairman,
Central Council for Education
October, 2004