RETHINKING JAPANESE EDUCATION–AGAIN

The reputation of Japan’s public school system has been taking a beating of late notwithstanding—or perhaps because of—a long series of educational reforms implemented over the past two or three decades. In this section Satô Manabu, citing the disheartening results of the 2003 Program for International Student Assessment, argues that government reforms and the reaction against them have created an educational crisis. And Asada Shizuko reports on chaos in the classroom, a problem that has not improved and may even have worsened as a result of educational reform.

The results of the 2003 PISA assessment were released on December 7, 2004, and the results were every bit as disappointing as Satô suggests. But they scarcely came as a shock to those involved in Japanese education. Two years earlier a nationwide survey of academic achievement and motivation among upper elementary and middle school students, conducted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) and released on December 13, 2002, had shown proficiency in mathematics and social studies declining at every grade level.

In the same year (2002), Japanese public elementary schools adopted a new set of Courses of Study (Gakushû shidô yôryô), the comprehensive curriculum standards compiled by MEXT for use in all the nation’s public elementary, middle, and high schools and used by the ministry as a basis for screening new textbooks (middle schools adopted the new framework in 2003, and high schools in 2004). The new curriculum standards are predicated on the policy of yutori kyôiku, or “education that gives children room to grow,” which the Education Ministry had been phasing in since 1977 with the aim of easing the rigors of Japanese school life. Thus far the main elements of this policy have included the introduction of a five-day school week, a 10% cut in school hours, a 30% cut in the amount of material covered, and the adoption of interdisciplinary and integrated studies. It is the basic policy underlying these curriculum changes—that is, yutori kyôiku—that many people blame for the decline in academic achievement. But to fairly assess that policy, we need to review its background and development.

About three decades ago, when the reform movement first began gathering steam, the Japanese education system was widely criticized for overemphasizing competition and stuffing children’s heads with factual knowledge to prepare them for high school and college entrance examinations. Within this reformist climate, moves to introduce ability grouping with the aim of reducing the number of failures and dropouts were criticized as discriminatory and were beaten back. Educators even attacked the competitive atmosphere of elementary school athletic meets and advised against keeping track of scores or rankings. The move to streamline the curriculum arose from this reaction to high-pressure schooling centered on memorization and from a new emphasis on helping struggling children instead of challenging those who learned quickly.

The Ministry of Education (as it was called prior to the cabinet reorganization of 2001) was by no means alone in advocating yutori kyôiku. Most of the business community backed it as well in the belief that Japan needed a different kind of worker to compete in the decades ahead. Ever since the Meiji era (1868–1912) Japan had worked single-mindedly to catch up with the West, and a high-pressure, rigorous, standardized style of schooling had served the state’s purpose well, both before World War II, when the focus was on “enriching the country and strengthening the military,” and after the war, when economic growth became the overriding priority. By the late 1980s, however, it was widely felt that this style of education was ill suited to the coming age of information and globalization. The emphasis was shifting away from mass production and utilitarian values. Economically, the Japanese had no one to catch up with any more. To move to the next level, the nation needed to find a place for originality and creativity in its production systems, and this meant nurturing those qualities from an early age. In sum, many people believed that as Japan evolved from an industrial to an information society, there was a need to adapt the content and style of Japanese education to match. This was the economic rationale driving the yutori reforms.

The schools envisioned by these reforms were to focus more on fostering thinking skills and living skills than on instilling knowledge. They would encourage diversity rather than uniformity. With these goals in mind, the Education Ministry began pruning the national curriculum. Sets and probability disappeared from the elementary math curriculum in 1992, and children were taught that the value of pi was “about 3” (although the number 3.14 did appear in textbooks). Traditional science and social studies classes were eliminated for first- and second-graders and replaced by “everyday life” classes, which included such hands-on activities as growing vegetables.

The outcome of these reforms was apparent not only in the 2003 PISA results but also in the results of the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, released on December 15, 2004. In science, eighth-graders dropped from fourth place in the 1999 TIMSS to sixth place in 2003. The average mathematics score fell for both eighth-graders and fourth-graders, and the average science score fell for fourth-graders, indicating a clear decline in basic academic skills. But even before this, various national surveys had shown not only a drop in achievement but also an increase in the number of unmotivated children and a decline in the amount of time spent on homework. In short, the verdict has been in on yutori kyôiku for some time now. However, it was not until January 2005 that Education Minister Nakayama Nariaki publicly expressed his misgivings about the “room to grow” policy and announced his intention to carry out yet another comprehensive curriculum review.

The fact is that education reform is a very slow process in Japan, largely because of the way the Japanese bureaucracy functions. After the Education Ministry identifies a problem, the Central Council for Education deliberates it and submits recommendations, the Courses of Study are reviewed and revised, and finally the textbooks are revised to match. Assuming that each of these steps will take a year or more, at least three years are bound to elapse between the time the Education Ministry identifies the problem and the implementation of a solution, including revised textbooks. The result is that the country’s education system is always several years behind in responding to change.

Adding urgency to the current problem is the fact that current demographic trends have meant fewer and fewer students, so that by 2007 it is forecast that the number of college applicants will equal the total number of available spaces. What this means is that just about anyone will be able to go to college, regardless of how hard he or she studies. There are concerns that if the trend toward yutori continues even while competition is abating, Japan’s international ranking will drop even further. Determined to rehabilitate the prestige of Japan’s education system, experts inside and outside of MEXT are considering a number of new measures, including reinstatement of the standardized achievement tests that were abandoned in 1966. Unfortunately, this reform, too, must make its way through the Japanese bureaucracy. What Japan needs more urgently than educational reform is reform of its political and administrative systems.

Asada’s article deals with a problem even more basic to learning than academic standards, namely, discipline in the classroom. About five years ago the media began to call attention to the lack of discipline in upper elementary school classrooms, dubbing the phenomenon “classroom breakdown.” Now, it seems the trend is appearing even among first-graders, young children who have just come from the free atmosphere of day-care centers and nursery schools. This in turn has reignited the perennial debate as to whether the responsibility for discipline lies with the family or the schools. But in virtually every case in which a school has been able to reverse classroom breakdown, closer cooperation between parents and teachers—as by having parents volunteer in the classroom—has been part of the solution. Conversely, as Asada points out, a lack of trust between parents and teachers is a recipe for classroom chaos. (Unfortunately, according to the results of a survey published by the Yomiuri Shimbun on February 6, a full 60% of Japanese are dissatisfied with the quality of public school teachers.)

As both Satô and Asada argue, teachers must work hard to adapt to the demands of a new era. This is why, in their hiring of new teachers, school systems have been showing a preference for people with work experience in the private sector. They have also shown an increasing willingness to hire school principals who are not certified teachers. In fact, there is a movement afoot to reexamine the entire certification process. The creation of more and better graduate schools for aspiring teachers is also high on the agenda.

Meanwhile, other forces are pushing toward a more traditional educational model, reevaluating the customary approach of allocating a certain amount of time each day to hammer in the basic skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Others have pointed to research suggesting that the environment provided by parents, including such basics as ensuring children get plenty of sleep and eat a good breakfast, is also a significant determinant of academic achievement. Rather than wait patiently for the bureaucracy to plan and implement its next round of educational reform, parents and schools might want to take the initiative and return to the classical schooling and traditional child-rearing methods that have served Japan so well in the past. (Kondô Motohiro, Professor, Nihon University)

© 2005 Japan Echo Inc.