Japan's Education Rat Race

...I am sure that I studied much harder during my last two years in high school than I did in college.' One hears far fewer complaints, by contrast, about elementary schools...

...It was merely a "test exam," and the only people who profited immediately were the juka operators...

...counterparts...

...There are almost no discipline problems here...

...They attract about 6 million elementary school students alone each year...

...The deepest reasons for this lie in the Japanese cultural tradition...

...Stereotypes to the contrary, the Japanese suicide rate does not even rank in the top 10 worldwide?but the rate for students is much higher than the national average...

...Is it worth living...

...Education ministry surveys report that about 650,000 of these special schools are operating across Japan—more than 15 times the combined number of primary and secondary schools...

...At the elementary schools, where the competitive pressures are lowest, these values create what to Cummings is an enviable situation: "In the field of art, for example, Japanese students in the second grade have surpassed my ability as an adult...

...In school, bright students don't associate with dull ones...

...William Cummings, a sociologist at the University of Chicago who has studied higher education in Japan, is currently investigating elementary and junior high schools, and sees them as superior in many ways to their U.S...

...five you fail,' meaning that those who sleep four hours a night or less during the pre-exam period will pass, while those who sleep five hours or more will fail...

...A number of youths also express their darker feelings about exam season in letters to newspapers...

...Michael Berger, a past contributor, is a free lance based in Japan...

...Cummings sees hope at the upper levels if funds are made available for the construction of additional high schools ("In the next 3-4 years, 100 new high schools will be needed in Tokyo alone to take oare of the 1950s baby boom —we may see the first skyscraper high school in Japan...

...Yet in the final analysis, the reform most needed is a campaign to convince the Japanese public that the anxieties of the exam season are not worth the human costs...

...When the Meiji era leaders of a century ago started to dismantle the feudal class system and encourage public education, they doubtless never dreamed a competitive scramble to enter the most highly regarded schools would eventually develop, hurting young people rather than helping them...

...In fact, outsiders who have taken a close look are often positively glowing with praise...

...People would look down on me...

...That often takes up most of the teacher's time in America, but not in Japan...

...Television is used constructively in most classes as a teaching aid...

...Although many Japanese educators argue that the postwar enrollment boom has produced a decline in the overall quality of higher education that makes elitism a myth, the public continues to believe that attending one of the country's prestigious institutions is the key to getting a good position...

...and for assisting financially troubled private universities ("A five-year program of government aid has just ended...

...Companies claim, and most Japanese educators agree, that once the university exam is passed, it is almost impossible for someone to be flunked out, and that, consequently, the four years of college are a period of carefree student life, not real growth...

...Cummings, of course, is right...

...As maddening as this competition is, however, the most maddening aspect of Japan's educational system is that nobody seems to know how to change things...

...Ironically, though, businesses have recently been grumbling about the mediocrity of their new employes, including those from the prestige universities...

...Twenty per cent of the firms polled said they take new workers only from certain universities, and that elite-school graduates have a better chance for advancement...

...Although surveys indicate new recruits in business now come from a broader range of schools than before, and individual ability (in the early stages at least) is the primary consideration for promotion, elitism still lives in the corporate system...

...A girl like me has no place except in a comer of a classroom...

...College, high school and junior high school entrance examinations began in February...

...One day in mid-January, more than 20,000 of Tokyo's junior high students took an exam...

...Before they end late this month they will have taken their annual toll in disappointments, nervous breakdowns and suicides...

...many private universities and colleges will go bankrupt unless the aid continues...

...for raising teachers' salaries ("Secondary teachers' salaries have gone up about 20 per cent in the last two years, but there will be an increased demand for teachers in the late 1970s, again because of the baby boom...

...One 14-year old junior high school girl recently wrote: "My brother attends a famous high school...

...Because there is no discipline problem, field trips are numerous, and fun, not an ordeal...

...Many students attend juku (prep schools) after regular class hours, where they are taught nothing more than how to take the tests...

...Indeed, some who do not pass their exams end their lives...

...Excellent students have killed themselves because they couldn't stand the pressure any longer, and for several years special classes have been treating children with "schoolphobia," a malady that apparently affects bright students more than dull ones...

...I'd hate to attend a less famous one...

...The toughest time in our lives," said an acquaintance, "is when we're trying to enter junior high, then high school, and finally university...

...But those who passed didn't get into a school...

...Through the months prior to exam season, hundreds of thousands of Japanese youngsters almost disappear from sight, losing themselves in countless hours of preparation, depriving themselves —or being deprived by their parents—of almost every recreation...

...Even if they wouldn't, I get scared to think of the possibility...

...practically all schools now have swimming pools, and in general, there is great rapport between students and teachers...

...Suicides among the young, moreover, are not limited to those who fail...

...Millions of young Japanese and their parents go beyond the extra preparation just in case—traveling to lucky temples and shrines throughout the country where they write prayers on small wooden plates and fasten them to altars or sacred trees...

...Changed though society is from generations past, strong values of respect toward one's superiors and elders, and an abiding curiosity and interest in education, persist as significant forces in Japanese life...

...The national universities and their connected high schools, plus a few private universities and high schools, form most of this elite circle...

...The major problems in America," he declares, "are motivating students and maintaining classroom discipline...

...Nearly all my young friends agree...

...Primary school children tell each other, "four you pass...

...Kami sama (Dear God) onegaishimasu (I beg of you)," the supplications usually begin, then go on to name a particular school or company (corporations give entrance exams, too...

...In music, most schools have orchestras in which the children not only learn to play instruments, but can read music by the fourth grade...

...It] seems to me that only those bright, or shrewd, ones benefit from society...

...The quality and individuality of their work is impressive...

...Teachers are the same...

...textbooks are free, and furnished new each year...