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Japan Higher Education
College Entrance
College entrance is based largely on the scores that
students
achieved in entrance examinations. Private institutions
accounted
for nearly 80 percent of all university enrollments in
1991, but
with a few exceptions, the public national universities
are the
most highly regarded. This distinction had its origins in
historical factors--the long years of dominance of the
select
imperial universities, such as Tokyo and Kyoto
universities, which
trained Japan's leaders before the war--and also in
differences in
quality, particularly in facilities and faculty ratios. In
addition, certain prestigious employers, notably the
government and
select large corporations, continue to restrict their
hiring of new
employees to graduates of the most esteemed universities.
There is
a close link between university background and employment
opportunity. Because Japanese society places such store in
academic
credentials, the competition to enter the prestigious
universities
is keen. In addition, the eighteen-year-old population is
still
growing, increasing the number of applicants.
Students applying to national universities take two
entrance
examinations, first a nationally administered uniform
achievement
test and then an examination administered by the
university that
the student hope to enter. Applicants to private
universities need
to take only the university's examination. Some national
schools
have so many applicants that they use the first test, the
Joint
First Stage Achievement Test, as a screening device for
qualification to their own admissions test.
Such intense competition means that many students can
not
compete successfully for admission to the college of their
choice.
An unsuccessful student can either accept an admission
elsewhere,
forego a college education, or wait until the following
spring to
take the national examinations again. A large number of
students
choose the last option. These students, called
ronin (see Glossary),
spend an entire year, and sometimes longer,
studying for
another attempt at the entrance examinations.
Yobiko (see Glossary)
are private schools that, like
many juku, help students prepare for entrance
examinations.
While yobiko have many programs for upper-secondary
school
students, they are best known for their specially designed
full-time, year-long classes for ronin. The number of
applicants
to four-year universities totaled almost 560,000 in 1988.
Ronin accounted for about 40 percent of new
entrants to
four-year colleges in 1988. Most ronin were men,
but about
14 percent were women. The ronin experience is so
common in
Japan that the Japanese education structure is often said
to have
an extra ronin year built into it.
Yobiko sponsor a variety of programs, both
full-time and
part-time, and employ an extremely sophisticated battery
of tests,
student counseling sessions, and examination analysis to
supplement
their classroom instruction. The cost of yobiko
education is
high, comparable to first-year university expenses, and
some
specialized courses at yobiko are even more
expensive. Some
yobiko publish modified commercial versions of the
proprietary texts they use in their classrooms through
publishing
affiliates or by other means, and these are popular among
the
general population preparing for college entrance exams.
Yobiko also administer practice examinations
throughout the
year, which they open to all students for a fee.
In the late 1980s, the examination and entrance process
were
the subjects of renewed debate. In 1987 the schedule of
the Joint
First Stage Achievement Test was changed, and the content
of the
examination itself was revised for 1990. The schedule
changes for
the first time provided some flexibility for students
wishing to
apply to more than one national university. The new Joint
First
Stage Achievement Test was prepared and administered by
the
National Center for University Entrance Examination and
was
designed to accomplish better assessment of academic
achievement.
The Ministry of Education hoped many private schools
would
adopt or adapt the new national test to their own
admissions
requirements and thereby reduce or eliminate the
university tests.
But, by the time the new test was administered in 1990,
few schools
had displayed any inclination to do so. The ministry urged
universities to increase the number of students admitted
through
alternate selection methods, including admission of
students
returning to Japan from long overseas stays, admission by
recommendation, and admission of students who had
graduated from
upper-secondary schools more than a few years before.
Although a
number of schools had programs in place or reserved spaces
for
returning students, only 5 percent of university students
were
admitted under these alternate arrangements in the late
1980s.
Other college entrance issues include proper guidance
for
college placement at the upper-secondary level and better
dissemination of information about university programs.
The
ministry provides information through the National Center
for
University Entrance Examination's on-line information
access system
and encourages universities, faculties, and departments to
prepare
brochures and video presentations about their programs.
Data as of January 1994
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