I am an IT professional, currently in London. Several years ago I was actually living in Japan with a working visa, intended to stay there long term, but before the Covid crisis (unfortunately) I took the decision to withdraw and go back to Europe. This was motivated by several reasons. The first is that career-wise, I was in a Japanese traditional company, and while I had no issues whatsoever, the climate was more that of a “working holiday” and not of serious work, and projects even if interesting (sometimes more than where I worked immediately after), were conducted at a very slow pace. The second issue was the cultural environment: even in London is tiny compared to Tokyo, cultural and leisure activities I am interested simply happen way more often, in Tokyo I also had issues in integrating with the foreign community (!), the mentality was strange and I couple of times I had arguments (I thought it was 100% my fault for them, but in London never experienced anything similar, and even being again a foreigner I feel way more integrated, for reasons I still cannot figure out).
So far so good, but fast forward a few years, I am now married, with a child coming. If there is something I hate so far of the UK culture (according to the little information I have and I have experienced) is child upbringing and education. Everything seems to be built on children being nannied until late teens, they are not independent, they never go to school or cultural places (library, cinema, park, etc.) alone, they are imposed cultural product (books, films) that are way too childish, and they cannot often access more grown-up and age-appropriate products due to censorship (BBFC) or self-censorship (librarian, publicans). State primary schools themselves seem kindergartens, and the learning pace is painfully slow. The kind of environment that, if I were myself a child, I would consider oppressive at least. When I was at school myself (not in the UK, in southern Europe), I was often envying Chinese or Japanese children (I had a cultural exchange with a Chinese middle school when I was 16).
Knowing that Japan instead values a lot child independence and autonomy, should I reconsider it in the medium-long term, when my career is more established, and when my child is eventually primary school age? What do people with children in Japan in public (state) school think (for political reasons I am opposed to private education)?
16 comments
Education is better in the UK at least from my experience. Higher standards. Better discipline. An actual encouragement of understanding and critical thinking.
>If there is something I hate so far of the UK culture (according to the little information I have and I have experienced) is child upbringing and education.
I feel like the first thing you should do is to expand your knowledge base on how things are in the UK. While I’m not British myself I have a decent number of friends and acquaintances from the UK, and what you’ve described doesn’t match their descriptions of growing up.
>Knowing that Japan instead values a lot child independence and autonomy
Uh…. Kinda? But also not at all.
Japan values child independence in the context of “kids walking themselves to school” and whatnot, but “autonomy” is not even *remotely* a word that I would associate with Japanese children.
It’s not (entirely) hyperbolic to describe the Japanese education system as “indoctrination”. They’re taught conformity from a *very* early age. There is little to no academic freedom in the school system.
Several of the things you listed as things you dislike about the UK system are *absolutely* true of the Japanese system:
>they never go to school or cultural places (library, cinema, park, etc.) alone
Japanese children don’t do much of this on their own either. They walk to school in (assigned) groups. They walk home in (assigned) groups. Everything is done in a very regimented fashion. Weird TV shows about kids wandering around alone aside Japanese children do *very* little on their own.
>they are imposed cultural product (books, films)
The same is true of Japan. Or at least as true as it is in the UK. The “official” media (the stuff they get from school) is all *heavily* proscribed and sanitized.
But children in both countries are more than capable of procuring their own media (age appropriate or not) as they mature. Bookstores are a thing. The internet is a thing.
>they cannot often access more grown-up and age-appropriate products due to censorship (BBFC) or self-censorship (librarian, publicans).
Again: True in Japan as well.
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I said it at the beginning, but I’m going to say it again for emphasis:
*Before you make any long term plans you need to do a deep dive on* ***both*** *countries.*
Honestly right now it seems like you have an at-best surface level understanding of how children are raised in the UK, and that you have a very idealized view of how things are in Japan as well.
Are Tokyo and London your only choices? The world is big, and many countries have very good school systems and also work/life balance. Think of Scandinavia or Germany, for instance.
Fazziebear and dalkyr are right. I recommend talking to teachers who have taught in both countries. They aren’t hard to find and might be able to give you some more insight, as your take seems really… off.
Hi! I’m also in IT and faced, and am facing, a similar decision.
Last year we had the option to either move to London for my promotion at work, or move back to Japan (we lived there for about 4 years) for my fully funded PhD. We have a baby so it was a really difficult decision in a number of ways.
In the end, we decided on London for the multiculturalism and the quality of schools. Those benefits have proven true!
But we’re definitely overall unhappy here. British culture is tricky for us (very cold), and while London is a great city it really shines if you’re young and/or child-free. We don’t feel like we’re getting the quality of life we want for the amount we’re paying to be here, on top of the sacrifice of being away from our families in the US.
We talk constantly about moving back to Japan. We have friends there with children, miss the country, and see the IT sector there as something exciting for our careers. We even visited for a couple weeks in October to look at buying a property as a vacation home!
But.. we haven’t moved, and we haven’t made any offers, or applied to any jobs. Not yet anyway. I still worry about my child being othered in Japan. Experiences will vary of course, but I would hate to have my kids be miserable and bullied simply for their brown skin and curly hair when in London they’ll fit right in with their peers.
My advice is the same advice I have give myself every day: don’t make a rash decision. Life is long. Sometimes the grass is always greener. Problems here will be traded for problems there. There are always opportunities for change. Japan will be there when, and if, you’re ready to make the move!
Edit: On the note of children being independent and well disciplined in Japan, I have to say I agree with you. I’m in West London and see kids 10-14 vaping, littering, and being generally obnoxious on a daily basis. In Japan this definitely happens too, but usually in smaller groups of boys. I also don’t feel safe having my daughter ever be out of visual sight, but when we visited Japan last year I could let her be a bit more free to wander about. My stress levels were just overall more chilled out.
But Japan has other problems with youth, like too much discipline and a school system that doesn’t promote the growth or development of individual critical or creative thinking. What if, for example, my kids are LGBT? (Then again, liberal education, in the philosophical sense, is also being replaced with rigidity in places like the US.) I also hate the normalization in Japan of what to me is borderline pedophilia, if not explicitly so.
I am pretty much in same situation and eager to find out which country would be best to bring up my children. Hope we will both find out the answer from views of the folks who experienced both countries.
Others have covered some but.. sure they can be independent in some respects, but heavily dependent in others. There’s a lot of coddling here as well and independence can be taught at home.
Also, bringing them over in primary age, I don’t think it great. Putting aside uprooting from familiarity and friends, a lot of couples that I know here with one Japanese parent and one foreign, want to leave by the time their kid is in 5th or 6th grade. Because its great up until thay age, but then… The pressure for studying and academia absolutely kills kids here. I’ve seen gr. 4 kids hyper and full of energy absolutely drained by the next year.
Japanese children also don’t regularly go to “cultural places” either. That’s only in anime. If parents don’t teach them right, they’ll stay at home playing video games all day long.
I moved to Japan last year and my kids are in Japanese schools— youngest was in yochien (kindergarten) this year, and oldest is finishing 3rd grade.
There are pluses and minuses, and I can’t speak to the UK comparison since we’re from the US, but overall we prefer Japanese schools for the younger ages. That’s a broad view, and there are things that our US school did better/Japan school does worse, BUT in the end I think their quality of life (at least for pre-k and primary grades) is much better here compared to back home.
If you have specific questions about the Japan school experience I’m happy to share our perspective so far. Keep in mind that this can vary wildly based on school culture— we’ve been very lucky with our neighborhood school.
This is just my personal opinion but why on earth would anyone want to have their kids go through the Japanese education system? The lack of critical thinking and the enforcement of conformity, not to mention cram school, are real. I work in higher education in Japan and I see the result of it every day (although I am extremely lucky to have amazing students, I still see the effects of their educational history).
Can’t speak for the UK though.
Just for context, my family and I are having a similar discussion (my partner is Japanese) and we’re trying to decide if we should have our kids undertake primary education in Japan.
I want to emphasise primary education. Why?
In a previous role, I worked in Non-EU admissions for a university. Japanese high schools diplomas are not deemed to be as good as most European high school diplomas.
How do you know? Well, look at some random university entry requirements:
[University of Amsterdam, Netherlands:](https://www.uva.nl/en/education/admissions/bachelors/international-qualifications-check.html) Japanese students need high school diploma + 1 year of university to meeting requirements for entry.
[University of Edinburgh, Scotland:](https://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/international/country/asia/east-asia/japan) Japanese students need high school diploma + foundation year.
[Trinity College Dublin, Ireland:](https://www.tcd.ie/study/country/japan/) Japanese students need high school diploma + foundation year.
The consensus for entry to these universities is that a Japanese high school diploma on it’s own is deemed to be not good enough/not equivalent for getting into a European university. Of course, if you want your kids to go to university in Japan, it’s not a problem, but I just wanted to show that the standard of high school in Japan is not really regarded that highly.
The problem with education in Japan is kids aren’t able to have open discussions in the classroom at all. It’s all rote memorization to take a test. That’s the entire thing. In the UK I’m sure kids are encouraged to discuss and form their own ideas and opinions about any given topic at least in some limited capacity vs none in Japan. I’d never want to raise a kid in Japan. Education is better in the west.
All I have is another anecdote, but British father to half-Chinese kids here. We moved to the Netherlands to get closer to my family and away from the heavily regimented and entirely rote-based Chinese education system. We know a Japanese family in our town who moved from Japan for one of those same reasons, which I think you can guess 😀.
I think school in the UK is fine. FWIW, the Dutch put more emphasis on “I can do/plan it myself” from the start. Kids here absolutely do go out by themselves or in groups, aided by the bike culture of course.
This is just pure observation as I do not know anything outside of the US education system, but you seem to be very quick to defend the Japanese education system while at the same time ignoring what people are telling you. Many have already said that it is not great, there is a lot of pressure, cliques, etc. I don’t think I’ve found a comment where you haven’t defended or questioned the validity of their claim, though. You say that you want unbiased opinions but seem pretty biased yourself.
I’m considering moving back to Japan to raise my children rather than the UK. I’ve worked as a teacher for the past 4 years and I’m so disappointed in the education system here. I teach in Scotland as a supply teacher so I’ve been in several schools and the lack of respect children have is astounding. In every school I’ve taught in, at least one class is evacuated a week due to the behaviour of another student. There are children in Primary 7 (so 10/11 year olds) who can’t or can only barely read and write.
When I was an ALT, I did see some unruly behaviour so I’m not doubting it’s existence. I definitely don’t think Japan is perfect, but I do think that overall, the children I met had far more respect not just for adults but everyone around them – even if only on a very basic level of trying not to make too much of a mess at lunch because they know they’ll be the one to clean it up (whereas in Scotland I can only get my students to tidy up if I bribe them with prizes).
I don’t think I would want my children to have to go through a middle/high school education in Japan for some the reasons they have been outlined here, but I’m definitely considering it for their primary years.
If you would also consider other (European countries) I would recommend the Netherlands.
Their education system, especially later on at uni heavily prioritizes critical thinking and agency.
The state makes sure that extra curricular activities are near ubiquitously available for kids in school and the general quality of life and education is quite high.
I have lived in London before and found it much harder to integrate into that NL. NL, even in its more international cities (Amsterdam and Rotterdam) has more of a sense of its own identity and aesthetic, whereas London is a whole bunch of different things.
I also lived in Barcelona for a year and while I prefer the social culture and general aesthetic, there is no question it is behind NL in terms of efficiency, corruption, and objective metrics on quality of life.
The only problems I had with NL were the weather, which is comparable to the UK, and the food. However if you’re in a bigger city you’ll have intl food options so that doesn’t matter as much.