Education in Japan

The Japanese education system is modeled on and heavily influenced by its American counterpart. The Fundamental Law of Education, passed in 1947 under American occupation, introduced the 6+3+3+4 structure of Japanese education: six years of elementary education, three years at lower secondary school, and three at upper secondary school followed by four years at university for those in the academic stream.

Japanese school children consistently achieve impressive results in international benchmarking tests such as the OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which is testimony to a high school system that enrolls over 97 percent of junior school students and graduates close to all of them. In the United States, by comparison, 88 percent of junior high school students go on to high school, from where only 70 percent graduate within four years*.

With approximately three million students enrolled at over 1,200 universities and junior colleges, Japan provides a wealth of opportunities for students wishing to pursue tertiary education. Yet despite these opportunities, the nation's universities are widely considered to constitute the weakest component of the education system. For students, the battle lies in gaining admission to a prestigious school; once admitted, students typically breeze through the first three years of their undergraduate program and spend the final year job hunting.

Academic standards at the undergraduate level were addressed in a 1998 report titled "Universities at the Turn of the 21st Century: Plans for Reform." Issued by the University Council, an advisory organ to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), the report stresses the importance of stricter grading policies and limiting the number of credits undergraduates can earn each year. The 1998 report, however, addresses only a fraction of the issues now facing the education sector in Japan, with demographics and graduate education being at the top of the list.

Japan's widely discussed demographic issues are epitomized, in the higher-education world, by a MEXT report estimating that by 2007 the number of high school graduates seeking admission to universities will be equal to the total number of places available (this was recently revised from an original estimate of 2009). This essentially means open enrollment to all but the most prestigious universities, which does not bode well for academic standards. The ministry is addressing the problems with a number of reform measures, which include plans for institutional mergers and closures, greater recruitment from abroad, greater institutional autonomy over finances and academics, and increased specialization.