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Japan Primary and Secondary Education
Education is compulsory and free for all schoolchildren
from
the first through the ninth grades
(see
fig. 5). The
school year
begins on April 1 and ends on March 31 of the following
year.
Schools use a trimester system demarcated by vacation
breaks.
Japanese children attend school five full weekdays and
one-half day
on Saturdays. The school year has a legal minimum of 210
days, but
most local school boards add about thirty more days for
school
festivals, athletic meets, and ceremonies with nonacademic
educational objectives, especially those encouraging
cooperation
and school spirit. With allowance made for the time
devoted to such
activities and the half-day of school on Saturday, the
number of
days devoted to instruction is about 195 per year.
The Japanese hold several important beliefs about
education,
especially compulsory schooling: that all children have
the ability
to learn the material; that effort, perseverance, and
selfdiscipline , not academic ability, determine academic
success; and
that these study and behavioral habits can be taught.
Thus,
students in elementary and lower-secondary schools are not
grouped
or taught on the basis of their ability, nor is
instruction geared
to individual differences.
The nationally designed curricula exposes students to
balanced,
basic education, and compulsory schooling is known for its
equal
educational treatment of students and for its relatively
equal
distribution of financial resources among schools.
However, the
demands made by the uniform curricula and approach
extracts a price
in lack of flexibility, including expected conformity of
behavior.
Little effort is made to address children with special
needs and
interests. Much of the reform proposed in the late 1980s,
particularly that part emphasizing greater flexibility,
creativity,
and opportunities for greater individual expression, was
aimed at
changing these approaches.
Textbooks are free to students at compulsory school
levels. New
texts are selected by school boards or principals once
every three
years from the Ministry of Education's list of approved
textbooks
or from a small list of texts that the ministry itself
publishes.
The ministry bears the cost of distributing these books,
in both
public and private schools. Textbooks are small,
paperbound volumes
that can easily be carried by the students and that became
their
property.
Almost all schools have a system of access to health
professionals. Educational and athletic facilities are
good; almost
all elementary schools had an outdoor playground, roughly
90
percent have a gymnasium, and 75 percent have an outdoor
swimming
pool.
Data as of January 1994
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