EDUCATION-JAPAN: Students Cram For Their Future

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Jan 18 1999 (IPS) - Tadayoshi Sasaki and his parents usually spend the New Year holidays with his grandparents, but the family tradition was broken this year.

Tadayoshi, 18, wants to enter one of Tokyo’s top universities in April, and his parents were more than willing to forego tradition and have him pore over mountains of books in time for Juniversity entrance exams scheduled for the end of this month.

And while the sky has fallen on the once mighty Japanese economy and big firms are laying off workers by the thousands, many parents are still clinging to the belief that their children can escape career bad luck by graduating from a top university.

Many parents insist that a diploma from a highly regarded school makes all the more difference now that the economy is in the doldrums.

But some observers say it may just be too hard to admit that all those years of preparation — not to mention millions of yen spent — may now end up for naught.

For many Japanese students, the path to elitism begins at kindergarten. Ambitious mothers carry toddlers to special cram schools or ‘juku’, where they are taught to sit still and to answer questions correctly, a process that demands rote learning.

“The competition is brutal out there, which is why parents try to start early,” says Yoshinori Fukushima, a cram school math teacher. “(But) by getting into kindergartens that are affiliated with prestigious private schools, the child does not have to study too much later.”

How much is “too much” is a matter of opinion. By most accounts, though, the cramming that Japanese youngsters go through on top of regular schooling is nothing less than grueling.

Some jukus require attendance the entire week. As exam time approaches, students get by on just five hours of sleep each night to keep up with extra lessons and frequent tests.

The jukus do not come cheap. In Tadayoshi’s case, his high achievers cram school entrance fee alone already cost his parents 6,400 dollars. And since he has been in cram school since he was a small boy, the Sasakis may well have spent millions of yen by this time.

All the effort and expense is aimed first at gaining admission to a top private high school, and later passing that all-important university entrance test.

The system has been criticised by many, but Fukushima says it remains in place because jukus seem to be the only way students can have a shot at getting admitted in the best universities.

Competition for admission to the top schools is fierce. At the University of Tokyo, the alma mater of Japan’s high officials and politicians, the number of applicants each year is more than double the figure the school pledges to take in.

Notes Fukushima: “While more people are complaining that the system is hard on children, there is no denying it, joining a prestigious university guarantees a good life, which is what all parents want for their children.”

Although the economic downturn is hurting everyone, the gap between the living standards of those who still have their white- collar jobs and the rest is still very evident.

Tadayoshi’s mother Yumiko says, “Salaries are at least 30 percent higher in a big company compared to what a small subsidiary of that company pays its workers. Also, big companies give more paid holidays and other allowances which assures you of a better life.”

This is why the Sasakis not only sacrificed family tradition during the holidays. In addition to monitoring Tadayoshi’s schedule, his father, a senior executive in a major insurance company drove him every evening to the God of Studies shrine.

Like hundreds of thousands of other students, Tadayoshi made offerings of money there for special prayers to help him through the exam.

His mother, meanwhile, says she spent all her spare time bringing him cold drinks or hot tea. Often, she would also prepare a warm snack at two in the morning for Tadayoshi, who would still be up studying.

Says Yumiko: “This time is very important not only for my son, but the whole family. As a mother, it is my duty to see that he succeeds in life.”

Tadayoshi says he wants to enter Keio University and later join one of Japan’s big companies so he can be like his father — stable and respected in society.

“My parents have much hopes for me and I do not want to disappoint them,” confesses the slight, soft-spoken boy who says he has no particular hobbies except for listening to music. “(But) I also think a good university will assure me of a secure future.”

Still, the recession and a record unemployment rate of around 4.3 percent is making some parents rethink what they are charting for their children.

Says Mari Hando, 44, who plans to send her son to France to become a chef: “What’s the point in studying so hard and spending all that money if jobs could disappear?”

Government officials, meanwhile, are also considering educational reforms, but for reasons different from that of Hando. Some authorities have taken note of the increasing juvenile violence and the rise in high school dropouts due to stress.

Already, a number of elementary schools have begun studies to develop individualism by allowing more student participation and focusing less on test results.

Chiba University professor and government economic advisor Hiroshi Kato is also leading other academic reformers in calling for “educational liberalisation” to encourage creativity. This in spite of Kato’s observation that Japan’s educational system has “made it possible to achieve the postwar high economic growth”.

But as a recent editorial in the ‘Mainichi’ newspaper said: “Our preoccupation with building smarter students and better companies will not produce happier children.”