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Japan Preschool and Day Care
Early childhood education begins at home, and there are
numerous books and television shows aimed at helping
mothers of
preschool children to educate their children and to
"parent" more
effectively. Much of the home training is devoted to
teaching
manners, proper social behavior, and structured play,
although
verbal and number skills are also popular themes. Parents
are
strongly committed to early education and frequently
enroll their
children in preschools.
Preschool education provides the transition from home
to formal
school for most children. Children's lives at home are
characterized by indulgence, and the largely nonacademic
preschool
experience helps children make the adjustment to the
group-oriented
life of school and, in turn, to life in society itself
(see Values
, ch. 2).
Preschools (yochien), predominantly staffed by
young
female junior college graduates, are supervised by the
Ministry of
Education, but are not part of the official education
system. The
58 percent of preschools that are private accounted for 77
percent
of all children enrolled. In addition to preschools, a
well-developed system of government-supervised day-care
centers
(hoikuen), supervised by the Ministry of Labor, is
an
important provider of preschool education. Together, these
two
kinds of institutions enroll well over 90 percent of all
preschoolage children prior to their entrance into the formal
system at
first grade. The Ministry of Education's 1990 Course of
Study for
Preschools, which applies to both kinds of institutions,
covers
such areas as human relationships, environment, words
(language),
and expression.
Data as of January 1994
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