I live in Korea whose educational environment is almost identical to that of Japan’s. These days every top student is willing to go to medical school, but due to a declining student count many people think the competition of yesterday isn’t there.
From watching youtube I saw a lot of Japanese people comparing their education system to China’s and claiming academic competition should be ramped up to produce highly qualified people. I wonder if this is an opinion that many share.
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I read somewhere that average Japanese students do not longer brother to apply to top universities, which implies that competition for Rank B Japanese universities is on the rise.
No matter where it is heading, as long as there’s Strong Zero they’ll be alright. Future is bright 😎
Unless I’m mistaken, which is entirely possible, these things follow an entirely describable trend. Well provisioned / run / managed “first world” / “developed” countries will always trend to an apparently “lazier” attitude to education and academic attainment and the pursuit of job/ wealth/ power as everyone attains a certain level of comfort.
It should be the natural trend where as the society becomes wealthier and more comfortable the drive diminishes and a diversity of opportunities become a more viable way to live your life.
Coincidentally, I have a friend who is a professor in Korea, and the way he makes it sound, it’s different in Korea, at least in terms of environment and levels as well as the overall education goal linking to the long term career path of the students.
For example, Japan doesn’t have the CSAT/Suneung or the equivalent (where the country practically shuts down for that day), nor that same pressure that Korean students have. So I think the focus on education curriculum overall is very different.
Japan seems like they’re still trying to catch up to Korea, China, America, and other countries, but always manages to still be lagging behind.
Best case scenario: Nowhere fast.
Worst case scenario: Down the bloody shitter, b’y.
I’m comparing Japanese schools to my local school district which rated as the worst in the state and pretty terribly in the country. It’s looking fine to me where I am now. Plenty of students aren’t motivated but get the work done anyways. But there are always students that blow expectations out of the water. One student did the translation for her English speech and it wasn’t just a Google translation, though she undoubtedly used it for words she didn’t know. At 15 her translation was better than what mine would have been if I wrote a speech in English and translated into Japanese.
It’s a step that would be difficult to take. Japan’s not exactly flush in the money, and when you’re not willing to pay that much on average, what kind of “highly qualified people” you can get is fairly limited.
I’m surprised they’re not going to be happy just to have students, the way demographics are heading.
The educational authorities are well aware of how far they’ve fallen behind Korea and Taiwan in STEM over the past two decades and I believe a lot of emphasis is going onto a catch-up. I don’t think this will be at the expense of English but don’t see immediate improvements either.
In higher education, there will be a trend of universities merging and changing their names as current demographic trends continue. At the same time, people have been sounding the bell of impending disaster for at least two decades (hundreds of jobs lost! fist fights to get part-time contracts!) and I’ve yet to see this happen.
In primary and secondary education – a neverending roulette of flavor of the year teaching approaches which become a source of extra planning and busywork for already busy teachers. Anyone remember ‘active learning’?
Politically Speaking:
Japan’s national government has put forth programs and adjustments to curriculum scheduling. But not much in overall “funding”. Funding is heavily determined by prefectures and municipalities. So Japan’s focus on education is sporadic, at best.
Not to mention with population decline and an aging population more politicians are focused on “elderly issues”, education not being one of them. This is because the elderly electorate is consistent and a very large block.
Educationally Speaking (as a teacher that teaches in public schools and has been here 12yrs now.)
Japan has only made minor changes to “how” it approaches education since the 1950s. Their idea is to throw more money at schools, but the old teachers in those schools will do everything in their power to make sure they can used their same recycled lessons from 20yrs ago.
(Trust me. I’ve seen the binders with degrading broken plastic and yellow discolored papers they photocopy)