Lessons Learned in Japan

Keizai Koho CenterEducation Fellowship

June 2006

Population

• United States – 300 million

• Japan – 126 million

• Japan is the size of California• 75% of the land is mountainess

and sparsely populated• 80% live in cities• Tokyo’s population – 30 million

Homogeneous Society

• 99% Japanese

• 1% Chinese or Korean

Religion

• 60% agnostic• 40% Buddhist• 1% Christian• 0% Moslems

EDUCATION

• 6 yrs. Elementary, 3 yrs. Junior high, 3 yrs. High school, 4 years college

• First 9 years are compulsory education

• 97% of junior high students go on to high school

Ubina High School

• 764 students• 50 faculty (40 male, 10 female)• 70% ride bicycles to school• No lockers• No air conditioning• No lunchroom

English is taught at every junior high school.

Class Size

• Elementary and junior high – 40 is the maximum

• High school – more than 40

• Declining birth rate has forced school consolidations

School Calendar and Day

• First semester - April to July • Second semester - Sept. to Dec.• Third semester - Jan. to Mar.

• Up until 5 years ago, school week was 6 days.

Polarization

• Parents with means send children to jukus (cram schools) beginning in the 4th grade.

• Elementary students study until 7:00, junior high until 9:00, high school after 9:00

Mr. Suehiko Nishida

• “Parents are expecting too much from the schools. Japanese teachers are fed up with this situation because of foolish mothers and fathers. Discipline should be done at home but parents expect school to do it. If anything goes wrong, parents call the school and complain.”

“1 to 2 students in each class ‘cocoon’ themselves in their rooms and will not come out or talk to anyone. Tend to be from wealthier homes. Children are spoiled; stressed by other children at school. They have never experienced failure; cannot handle any discouragement, no ability to handle stress. Basic principle is not to force them to go out.

• Counseling in Japan is new so counselors are not very experienced. School counselors share what children tell them and do not keep it confidential.”

New Concerns

• Memorizing information is not good enough to react to a changing world; information changes too fast.

• Need to educate students to respond to societal changes.

• 1998-pressure free education (education with latitude)

• Respect personality and characteristics of each student

Educational Concerns

• Bullying• Parents not supporting education

at home• Truancy; in 2000 134,000

students took long absences from school

Education Reform

• Give children a zest for living and make pressure free

• Create rich minds as well as healthy bodies

• Build Competitive Academic Ability – ability to learn, take initiative to make decisions, problem solving

• Bring out individual abilities of students

• Offer electives – more latitude in curriculum

• Comprehensive education• Consolidation of junior and high schools • Reform – good manners and good parts

of Japanese education need to remain during the reform

Hasuda Mayor Mikano

• Confucionism and Buddhism teach respect of elders

• Teachers are regarded as being correct.

• Westernization and influence from U.S. is causing students to become globalized and to be exposed to different ideas and philosophies.

• This influence is for the better.

• More than 50% of high school graduates go to university

• 30% of high school students go to juku; a decade ago only 15% went.

• Elementary students – 40% attend juku, junior high – 60%, high school – 30%

Workforce• Neet - part-time

workers • 250,000 workers are

neet out of 230 million

• Many people are not working

• Cocooning – young children and adult children from affluent families

• Frita – likely to change jobs frequently; 2.13 million in this category

• Low childbirth rate • Smaller labor force reduces those

supporting pension and health insurance

• Trying to promote career education to make children more independent

Economic Recovery

• 1/3 of all employees are temporary or part-time

• Production of labor intensive products shifted to China and other Asian countries

• Expanded production bases in US• Began producing machines and high

grade materials as they shifted labor to China.

Corporate Initiatives

• Productivity increase• Pursuit for higher product quality• Saving energy • Environment protection• Attention to corporate social

responsibility (CSR)

• Every year employing more engineers from China

• Chinese are hungry and ambitious and hard-working and very willing to contribute to the company

Parasite Singles

• Dependency structure • Adult children spend earnings on

hobbies and parents still support them. • 73% of single men and 74% of single

women over 30 live at home with parents.

• Lack of affordable housing contributes to this problem.