WHITHER JAPAN’S SCHOOLS?

The major monthly magazines in recent months have carried a spate of articles discussing the new Courses of Study (curriculum guidelines) that are to be implemented next year. The scope of the debate on education has also been broadened by the report released late last year by the National Commission on Educational Reform, an advisory organ to the prime minister. In the course of its deliberations, the commission considered proposals including the introduction of mandatory community service by young people and revision of the Fundamental Law on Education.

Responding to widespread popular complaints about a school system that focused on cramming facts into pupils' heads, the Ministry of Education made a shift starting in 1977 toward gradual reduction of the number of hours of study, with the idea of giving pupils “room to grow.” And now, as the authorities move to shorten the school week to five days, the hours of study are to be reduced further. This will mean, for example, that sixth graders will spend 25 fewer hours a year studying arithmetic and 35 fewer hours studying Japanese. Ninth graders will spend 35 fewer hours on both math and Japanese.

In an article in the January 2001 issue of Ronza (“‘Gakuryoku teika’ ga monozukuri no kiban o horikuzusu” [Declining Academic Standards Sap the Foundation of Skilled Manufacturing]), Shimotani Masahisa, writing as a representative of the industrial sector, rues the decline in basic scientific and mathematical knowledge among today’s students and sounds the alarm at the serious negative impact this is beginning to have on Japanese manufacturing. The new Courses of Study will cut the content of the elementary and middle school curriculum by about 30%, and this is causing many to share Shimotani’s grave concern. The same issue of Ronza includes an interview with Terawaki Ken, the Ministry of Education bureaucrat responsible for the drafting of the new curriculum (“Misutâ Monbushô ga gimon, hihan ni kotaeru” [Mister Education Ministry Responds to the Doubts and Criticisms]).* Terawaki defends the revised curriculum, explaining that up to now classroom teachers have taken the Courses of Study to represent an upper limit on what they should teach, but—in consideration of complaints that the revision will lead to a further lowering of educational standards—the new curriculum is to serve instead as a minimum standard. He further declares that a key question is to what extent schools and teachers will be able to change themselves.

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Another source of criticism of the revised curriculum comes from those concerned that they will lower academic standards at the college level. The March issue of Ronza features a special section about the situation at the University of Tokyo, considered the pinnacle of the Japanese academic establishment. Titled “Nyûshi kara hajimaru Tôdai kiki” (The Crisis at the University of Tokyo Commencing with Entrance Exams), the section reports that a marked decline in educational levels is already visible even among students seeking entrance to this elite institution.

University of Tokyo Professor Kariya Takehiko, in an article published in the January Ronza (“Nihon wa kaisô shakai ni naru” [Japan Will Turn into a Class Society]), condemns the approach taken by the Education Ministry, including the newly revised Courses of Study, on the basis of data about the number of hours of study outside of school. According to his data, the ministry’s relaxation of educational standards so as to allow pupils “room to grow” has eroded children’s interest in learning. Furthermore, he finds that the rejection of the value of studying is especially pronounced among lower social strata. And the spread of the idea that competition is bad has made it harder for those in the lower strata to maintain an interest in learning. Under present educational policies, the widening gap between the upper and lower strata in terms of children’s eagerness to learn and advance academically will, he warns, cause Japan to turn into a full-fledged “class society.”

In the February issue of Chûô Kôron, Kariya presents an overview of the debate concerning the educational system since the 1980s (“Kyôiku Kaikaku Kokumin Kaigi o yomitoku” [Interpreting the National Commission on Educational Reform]). In line with the recommendations made by the Provisional Council on Educational Reform in the latter part of the 1980s, the Central Council for Education and other bodies affiliated with the Education Ministry came out during the 1990s with specific proposals for changes to provide “room to grow” and “zest for living,” with a focus on respect for children’s individuality. But just as the finishing touches were being put on the Education Ministry’s program of reform, the prime minister’s advisory commission came out with a report seeking to turn the process in a completely different direction.

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According to Kariya, the difference between the recommendations of the prime minister’s commission and the earlier reform agenda can be summed up as a difference in views of the relationship between the individual and the public interest. Up to now, the idea behind educational reform has been to develop individuality; cramming and other forms of compulsion have been considered wrong, and the emphasis has been on pupil’s own interests and their independent initiative. But the National Commission on Educational Reform, as Kariya notes, shifted the main focus to public-interest concerns, which serve as the basis for the imposition of compulsory requirements. This showed up in the opinions expressed by commission members in favor of having all young people engage in community service.

Among the general public in Japan, few believe that the course of reform placing emphasis on “room to grow” and pupil’s individuality that has been pursued so far has improved the country’s educational system. On the contrary, chronic absenteeism has risen, more students are dropping out of high school, and each new outbreak of juvenile crime brings suggestions that the school system is to blame. An excessive emphasis on individuality is also widely seen as having produced what is widely referred to as “classroom breakdown” (gakkyû hôkai), the phenomenon of elementary and middle school teachers losing disciplinary control over their classes.

In its final report, the National Commission on Educational Reform called for community service to be implemented not on a compulsory basis but through the efforts of individual schools. As Kariya explains, the recommendation was toned down because of strong opposition from people who consider compulsory service to be too much like a system of military conscription. But Kariya is critical of the very foundations of the current educational reform debate. It is wrong, he declares, either to oppose the idea of service just because it would be compulsory or to support it without first considering the nature of the public interest that it is supposed to serve. A key question is what entities would promote the proposed community service activities. Perhaps, if local residents could take real charge of the system of government at the local level, then the “public interest”—that is, the target of community service—might be defined as activities conducted under local government auspices. But Kariya also urges consideration of the possibility of going beyond local governments and having nonprofit organizations take charge of programs for service by children and young people.

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A further issue that Kariya raises is whether the issue of educational reform should be debated on the national level in the first place. The entities that have debated this topic, including the prime minister’s commission, have been organs of the central government. However earnestly such panels may recommend efforts to bring out the special strengths of particular regions and schools, such calls from Tokyo are short on practicality. People criticize the school system for being overly uniform, but this can hardly be avoided inasmuch as even the efforts to reform it are uniform. In order to achieve real diversity, Kariya says, the responsibility for educational reform must be switched from the center to the regions. The goal should not be “decentralization,” or the sharing of power by Tokyo, but rather the achievement of real local sovereignty.

The government’s current idea is to increase the number of positions for public school teachers by 22,500 over the next five years. This would include an increase of 8,600 in the number of elementary school teachers, meaning an addition of 1,720 teachers a year. But over the past decade the number of teachers being hired has been cut, and as a result there has been a dramatic drop in the number of college students completing teacher training programs. Even if all the graduates of such programs are hired, projected retirements will produce a shortfall of 7,000 teachers a year. And of course hiring all the graduates indiscriminately will raise issues of teachers’ quality. Proposals that ignore this real-life supply gap are empty posturing.

Below we present three additional articles that, in conjunction with the above summaries, offer an overall view of the current debate on educational reform in Japan. One is by the prolific Kariya, who considers the combined impact of the falling birthrate and the new Courses of Study. Another is by Sakakibara Eisuke, former vice-minister of finance for international affairs; the strong condemnation of the educational bureaucracy from this quintessential bureaucrat bespeaks the seriousness of the current situation. The third is by Saitô Takashi, an educator whose consideration of the practical aspects of schooling offers a glimpse at the confusion and troubles in today’s classrooms and in the society of which they are a microcosm. (Kondô Motohiro, Professor, Nihon University)

*As part of the overhaul of the central government bureaucracy implemented on January 6, 2001, the Ministry of Education has become the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, abbreviated MEXT.—Ed.

© 2001 Japan Echo Inc.