Japanese Education Today: Time to Move On
The start of the new academic year this April brought the introduction of a new set of textbooks in Japanese elementary schools. Stories in the media about the new textbooks, which are considerably thicker than before, took them as symbolic of a shift away from yutori kyōiku, or “education that gives children room to grow.” A headline in the daily Asahi Shimbun on March 31 proclaimed: “25% More Pages in Elementary School Texts: Farewell to Room-to-Grow Education.” The Yomiuri Shimbun had shorter headline delivering the same message on the same day.
The new textbooks have more pages, and furthermore their contents seem to be more difficult. They restore many items that were designated as advanced-study topics in the previous round of textbook screening or that had been omitted entirely as part of the “room to grow” revisions, such as the formula for calculating the area of a trapezoid. In addition, the switch away from yutori kyōiku has set off a drive to increase the number of class hours. Many elementary schools have shifted from three terms per year to two terms, not because of any quality-related consideration but merely to squeeze a few extra hours of class time into the school year. Shorter summer and winter vacations have become the norm. In Tokyo, schools are being allowed to schedule Saturday classes twice a month starting this school year, and 73% of the elementary and junior high schools in the capital are already giving classes on Saturday.
Why is there such a rush away from room-to-grow education? Have the results of the yutori policy been comprehensively and scientifically examined? Will the teachers on the front lines be able to keep up with this change? In what follows I will attempt to answer these questions, and I will also consider the current state of the path from school to the workplace, because the traditional Japanese system of hiring new employees en masse from each year’s crop of graduating students is a prime mover behind the change of course from the yutori approach back to the earlier tsumekomi approach, that is, a focus on cramming facts into children’s heads.
Ogi Naoki
Graduated from Waseda University, where he studied Japanese literature in the School of Education. Had 22 years of experience as a teacher at junior and senior high schools. Is now a professor at Hōsei University and also active as an educational analyst. Author of Kodomo kakusa–Kowareru kodomo to kyōiku genba (Gaps Among Children: The Breakdown of Children and the Front Lines of Education) and other works.
