Hello fellow J-lifers,
I’m trying to work out education costs for my future sprog. My partner and I are strongly leaning towards public school, which I understand means we will probably have to set aside some extra funds for juku.
Of course I’m anticipating kiddo will need extra Japanese language support, but is the daily grind of juku worth it if you don’t intend to take the Japanese university entrance exams? I’m British and my partner is American, plus I work at a company (a juku, ironically) that specialises in getting students into universities abroad, so trying to get into a good Japanese university seems unlikely.
That said, I‘m unclear if there are any other benefits to juku or some other information that I might be missing. If anyone has any experience with kids in high school or juku in general then I would really appreciate your perspectives. Cheers.
9 comments
A lot of junior high kids go to juku so they can get into a good high school. High school entrance exams often cover material that hasn’t been covered in junior high yet at the point that they take the high school entrance exams.
If you’re British and your partner is American, what’s the point of sending your kid to a Japanese(-only) school? Are you staying here for good? Where would your child get proper English classes?
I don’t know..I don’t think I would send my kid to juku simply bc of how children and teenagers seem to hate it bc they lack work life balance. My husband is Japanese and his parents didn’t make him To go to juku and he says he’s really grateful for it.
I was just discussing this with my wife the other day. She was saying that parents who are competitive about middle school start juku while the child is in primary school for preparation. Yikes!
I send our child to public school. You could see how yours does before making a call on it.
Juku is an absolute hellscape for kids. If he doesn’t plan on going to uni, don’t send your kids.
To be honest I think you would be better off putting any money that you would spend on a juku into an investment fund and let your kid have the money when they are 18 to give them a head start financially and let them decide what they want to do. Theres nothing you can get in a juku that you cant find online for free. Spending more time with your kids and sending them to dance, art, music or martial arts classes would be way more beneficial than sending them to a juku.
Some students start juku in 5th or 6th grade or even earlier. Some want to go for private junior high schools or special public junior highs (that include high school) run by Tokyo-to. Then just about every student will attend juku in junior high, at 1 or 2 days a week as the the high schools are tracked by level. By 2nd year of junior high at least 60% are attending regularly for multiple subjects (anecdotal data). The juku themselves have levels, some are quite intense and inflexible and they vary by quality and price, too. We needed to find a decent one that would let our sons make up days they miss for soccer practice and games. Many of them will not do this. I was a JET many years ago and remember thinking that I would never send my crotchfruit to juku. “What a waste of time and money”, I thought. Once you learn about the system, it gets hard to leave your kids out of juku unless they are highly motivated independent scholars or you just don’t care about leaving them at a huge disadvantage relative to their peers. Right now, you have to be pretty well off to send them to even a state university in the US, unless you can fake in-state tuition qualification. The UK is probably a good choice when considering quality and value. Tough choices ahead.
Juku is mainly geared towards passing the entrance examinations for a junior high school or high school.
Most don’t start until junior high school but there are some kids that do it in primary school if they want to enter a good public junior high school/high school or private school.
The advantage of entering a combined junior high/high school is that they don’t need to do entrance examinations for high school when it can be more competitive. The downside is they likely need to go to juku in primary school as the entrance exams (especially for private schools) go beyond the standard curriculum.
If you’re from the UK it’s like studying the entrance examinations for a grammar school where these days many kids are attending the UK equivalent of juku (or Kumon) or have a tutor.
It’s unclear what problem you think juku would solve. Until you find one, don’t do it. What are you worried about specifically? What will your kid not learn?