Asia Times: All work, no play, no way



	December 17, 1999	atimes.com

Japan

All work, no play, no way
By Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO - Japan is making sweeping changes to its education policy, driven by a desire to ease traditionally rigid structures that education experts say tend to constrain creativity and individual character.

''Post-war Japanese education focused equality, but now the direction is on individualism,'' says Akira Hirayama of the Central Council for Education, which is in charge of educational reform under the Ministry of Education. The new thrust puts more emphasis on ''moral education'', aimed at building a more humane society, he says.

Likewise, officials say, there will be less emphasis on classroom activities, to encourage freedom of choice and a more rounded education in keeping with other developed countries.

The foundation of Japan's education system is based on the principle of equal educational opportunity established after World War II. Unlike most Asian developing countries which are still grappling with provision of basic education, Japan's problems increasingly have to do with quality of education and worrisome signs in recent years that include violence on campus and dropouts by youths who simply do not want to go to school.

Hirayama says the government's aim of making primary and secondary school mandatory decades ago was to give every Japanese citizen, facing a bleak future in the war-ravaged country, educational opportunities that would help them to improve their financial status and quality of life. The results of that post-war effort, also a time of rapid growth and industrialization, were astounding.

A Unesco study reports that the proportion of lower secondary school students going on to upper secondary schools increased from 42.5 percent to 90 percent by 1948. The proportion of students going on to university, which was 10 percent in the 1950s, rose to nearly 50 percent by 1998. Such high academic levels in Japan are often considered the basis for its miraculous economic growth in the post-war era.

''Japan's priority for education was made possible through high investment in the area, which in turn helped translate into a highly skilled workforce, a strategy that has paid off by making the nation rich and developing a higher quality of life for the people,'' explains Ryo Watanabe, author of the Unesco report and director of the department of international education at the National Institute for Education.

These impressive standards have now reached a turning point. Japanese themselves are taking a critical look at what kind of education is being provided, amid observations that it is too tied to the classroom and stifles critical thinking. Others say the traditional premium on conformity has stifled individuality. Now, Watanabe says, Japan is ready for drastic change.

One change will be the introduction of a five-day school week, shortened from the current five-and-a-half-day schedule. This is expected to reduce the curriculum, often criticized for forcing too many study hours and suppressing personal development. The Education Ministry hopes the extra spare time will enhance the creative skills of children.

''Perhaps the emphasis, till now, has been too much on the academic side, with the view to gaining acceptance to universities and acquiring secure jobs. The 21st century challenge is to move away from this system,'' explains Hirayama.

Watanabe also spells out the need to improve the standards of teaching by increasing the budget for special seminars as well as salaries in order to sustain Japan's current high teaching standards. ''It is important to respect the needs of teachers if a high education standard is to be maintained,'' he says.

Private education analysts applaud the reforms and point out that the issue is a pressing concern for Japan, which is now facing classroom upheaval, bullying among students and increasing numbers of dropouts. The old system, while promising equality, resulted in unhealthy, even neurotic, competition, critics say. ''Children are forced to study all the time to get into better universities, the necessary step for high-paying jobs,'' says Hiroko Nakamura, a high school teacher.

Now that Japan's officials know what they want for the future, the big issue is how soon these reforms will be enacted, and how Japan can move from churning out well-educated company employees to developing a varied and creative society.

(Inter Press Service)

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