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Educating for Productivity: Comparisons of Japanese and English Schooling and Vocational Preparation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

S.J. Prais
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Abstract

The high technical quality and reliability of Japanese manufactures raises questions of how the training and education of their workforce differs from Britain's. The standards reached by Japanese 15-18 year-olds in their technical and vocational secondary schools—and the number of pupils reaching them—are described in this paper and compared with Britain, as well as the standards reached in mathematics during compulsory schooling till 15. This article follows earlier studies of German and French schooling and vocational preparation (see this Review, August 1983, February and May 1985, and May 1986).

Japan … can hardly fail to become a teacher ere long. Alfred Industry and Trade, 1923.

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Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 119 , February 1987 , pp. 40 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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References

(1) See the excellent compendium Asia's New Giant: How the Japanese Economy Works, eds H. Patrick and H. Rosovsky, Brookings, 1976, esp. the chapters by N. Glazer on social and cultural factors, and by W. Galenson on the labour market.

(2) Using the World Bank's purchasing-power-parity exchange-rates. For pre-war comparisons on alternative bases, see Colin Clark, The Conditions of Economic Progress, Macmillan, 3rd edn, 1957, ch.2.

(3) For a detailed description of Japanese education, the reader may refer to Professor R.S. Anderson's study sponsored by the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare: Education in Japan: A Century of Modern Development, US GPO, 1975, p.412. Comparisons with England, of course, are not covered there; nor is there adequate emphasis on the role of the supplementary evening classes, described below. A recent article by Professor Leonard Cantor provides a convenient brief introduction to Japanese vocational education and training institutions, as seen through the eyes of an expert on British vocational preparation, but does not attempt a comparative evaluation (‘Vocational education and training: the Japanese approach’, Comparative Education, vol.21, no.1, 1985, pp.67-76); it contains many helpful references to comparisons between US and Japanese schooling and training systems. The most recent issue of Comparative Education (vol.22, no.1, 1986) is devoted to education in Japan, and deals with broader issues than are our concern here; the comments of the editor, Professor E.J. King, on the problems of Japanese schooling, are however very relevant (in his article there on ‘Japan's education in comparative perspective’, pp.73-82). Fuller accounts of Japanese vocational education, but again without comparative evaluations, have been given by S. Umetani, Education and Vocational Training in Japan, Institute of Asian Studies, Hamburg, 1980, and by K. inoue, The Education and Training of industrial Manpower, Japan, World Bank Staff Working Papers no.729, 1985.

(4) DES, Statistical Bulletin 9/84, table 2, relating to new entrants to higher education (table 4, relating to graduates, was amended for the UK totals after publication to include other forms of higher education). The well-known study published by NEDO, Competence and Competition, 1984, table 6.2, p.82, noted that only 18 per cent of the age-group in the UK in 1981 attained higher educational qualifications, compared with 37 per cent in Japan in 1979; but this was concerned with a narrower group of qualifications than included in the DES table 2 just mentioned.

(5) P.R. Rawle, The Training and Education of Engineers in Japan, mimeo, London Business School, 1983, esp. p.32.

(6) A greater ‘ambidextrousness’ of female operators in the UK than in Japan was reported as one reason for the success of Japanese affiliated electronic firms in this country the survey by Professor J.H. Dunning, Japanese Participation in UK Industry, Croome Helm, 1986, p.99, n.10). It is those Japanese firms that are ‘labour intensive’ that set up affiliates here— meaning, intensive in unskilled labour, rather than in those technical skills which are more readily available in Germany or Holland (ibid., pp.52 and 63, n.28).

(7) T. Husen (ed.), International Study of Achievement in Mathematics, Almquist & Wiksell, Stockholm, 1967, vol.I, p.270 (average ages); vol.II, p.22 (scores). The low average percentage of marks reflects, not an inability to carry out the tests quickly enough, but rather (a) the need to make provisions in the design of the tests to elucidate the proportions in each country who did particularly well, and (b) the diversity of national curricula. The samples compared here are those labelled as ‘Population 1 a’ in that study, and related to pupils in their thirteenth year of age. In our previous comparisons between Germany and England we were obliged to rely on ‘Population 1 b’, which related to all pupils in the class in which the majority were aged 13, since Germany did not participate on the alternative basis. Certain non-negligible problems arose in the application of these definitions, and were discussed in Appendix B of our previous paper (‘Schooling standards in Britain and Germany’, by S.J. Prais and Karin Wagner, National Institute Economic Review, no.112, May 1985). The Japanese samples appear to have been identical for ‘Populations 1a and 1 b’; this reflects the assumption that Japanese pupils advance from one class to another purely on the basis of their age. I am told that this is not precisely true and that a pupil may be required to repeat a class if absence (due to illness or injury) is a relevant factor.

(8) Population 1 b (see preceding footnote), and Husen, ibid., vol.I, p.271 and vol.II, p.23.

(9) The median age of starting school at the time of that survey was 5 years and 2 months in England, 6 years and 6 months in Japan (ibid., vol.I, p.227).

(10) Husen, op. cit., vol.I, p.22.

(11) This comparison is based on ‘Population 1a’ of the IEA study relating to samples of pupils who were all 13 years old. The alternative ‘Population 1b’ (relating to pupils from classes in which the majority of pupils were 13 years old) consolingly showed England as having the greatest proportion of top scorers. 2.4 per cent had 61 points or more, compared with 1.4 per cent in Japan. The position at the bottom of the range in ‘Population 1 b’ is barely changed, with 19 per cent of English pupils having 5 or fewer points and 7.6 per cent in Japan. The difficulty with a comparison on the basis of ‘Population 1 b’ is that the English sample was about a year older than the Japanese sample. The good of the top performers in the Dutch sample in ‘Population 1a’ have been ignored here because the sample was small (429 pupils), and differed markedly from their ‘Population 1b’.

(12) Based on a weighted average of the five sub-scores of 137 questions as given in a preliminary report of the 1981 survey by R.W. Phillips, ‘Cross national research in mathematics education’, in T.N. Postlethwaite (ed.), International Education Research Papers in Honor of Torsten Husen, Pergamon, Oxford, 1986, p.82.

(13) It needs to be emphasised that the questions are usually based on ticking one of five possible answers, and no ‘correction for guessing’ has been applied in the scores quoted here. England's low marks are thus in reality worse than they appear; for example, in the final question quoted in the text here, in which 22 per cent of English pupils gave the correct answer, it must be remembered that a strategy of ticking at random would have yielded 20 per cent correct. Hence the benefits of teaching in England in this type of problem are visible only in something like a mere 2 per cent of pupils!

(14) Interpolated from the summary in chart 8.3 of the paper by Professor N. Postlethwite (President of the IEA) on ‘The bottom half in lower secondary schooling’, in Education and Economic Performance, ed. G.D.N. Worswick, Gower, 1985, p.96. This chart is based on a maximum mark of 40 relating to the core items in these tests; the coefficients of variation are also on this basis.

(15) See (Japan) National Institute for Educational Research, Mathematical Achievements of Secondary School Students (in Japanese), Tokyo, 1982; pp.36-8 give the results for the 60 questions, of which I have a simple average.

(16) R.A. Garden, ‘The second IEA mathematics study’, Comparative Educational Review (forthcoming), see table 8. I have here quoted a simple average of the scores in arithmetic, algebra and geometry.

(17) Fees for individual schools are given by Obunsha (see next fn.), pp.22-4; for average expenditures by parents on education, see Japan Statistical Year Book 1985, p.668. See also T.P. Rohlen, Japan's High Schools, U. Cal., 1983, p.23, n.8.

(18) Examination Papers for Entrance to Senior High Schools (in Japanese), Obunsha, 1984. This source provides statistical summaries of the main features of these schools. Such is the popular interest in these examinations that those Japanese newspapers corresponding to the English ‘quality press’ publish each year, as an exciting news item, a copy of the examinations set for the main Upper Secondary Schools. A short account of these examinations has recently been given by Yutaka Togashi, ‘Japanese High School entrance examinations and scholastic achievement’, Evaluation in Education, vol.9., no.3 (1985), pp.221-42. For an English translation of a specimen examination in mathematics for one Prefecture (Osata), see Appendix A of National Institute Discussion Paper no.121, by the present author (on which this article is based).

(19) The English papers considered here were those set by the University of London (GCE O-level syllabus B, and Alternative Mathematics), and by the London Regional Examining Board (CSE).

(20) See Toshio Sawada, ‘Elementary algebra in Lower Secondary Schools in Japan’, in Comparative Studies of Mathemati cal Curricula : Changes and Stability 1960-1980, ed. H.-G. Steiner, Institut für Didaktik der Mathematik der Universität Bielefeld, 1980, p.426 et seq.

(21) See S.J. Prais and K. Wagner, ‘Schooling standards in England and Germany; some summary comparisons bearing on economic performance’, National Institute Economic Review, no.112, May 1985, p.61.

(22) The lack of computers in Japanese schools was attributed to their aim of providing ‘a grammar school education’ by a senior HMI Inspector specialising in mathematical education who visited Japanese schools in 1983 (T. Fletcher, HMI, Report to the British Council).

(23) Togashi, op. cit., p.233. In the same issue of that journal, mathematics scores are quoted for three sample (anonymous) Prefectures, the average being 54 per cent for entrants to General Upper Secondary Schools and 43 per cent for Vocational Upper Secondary Schools. (I am grateful to the authors for clarifying in correspondence that the published marks for Prefectures A and C are out of a total of 60 and 50 respectively, and I have here made the appropriate adjustments to the published averages; see A. Akagi, S. Nagano and M. Yamamoto, ‘Achievements in consumer mathematics among Japanese Technical High School students—a comparison with NAEP data’, Evaluation in Education, 1985, table 3.5, p.255.) Pass-marks, based on the average of the 4-5 subjects examined, are published for a selection of private schools in Obunsha, op. cit., pp.24-5 (third column of table). The private school with the highest academic reputation, Nada in Kobe, is described in detail by Rohlen (op. cit., pp. 18-28); it demanded a minimum pass-mark of 73 per cent. Less-demanding private schools were content to accept pupils with marks of 20 per cent. Marking may be more severe in Japan than in England (for example, a reluctance to award half-marks for correct method but wrong answer); this would imply that Japanese attainments were somewhat higher still than suggested in the text here.

(24) Costs of schooling are quoted from a recent OECD study, Social Expenditure 1970- 1990: Problems of Growth and Control, OECD, Paris, 1985, pp.36,38-9. Class sizes and days per year in school are quoted from the IEA studies. Students' help in schools is described by W.R. Cummings, Education and Equality in Japan, Princeton UP, 1980, p.8. The available evidence suggests that the number of hours actually spent in mathematics classes is probably higher in Japan; but there remains a need for a detailed analysis of the time-table which allows for school-periods missed because of sports-days, preparation for school-plays, and the like.

(25) Op. cit., p.285. The implied contrast is with the ‘child-centred’ attitude to teaching that dominated American schooling practice in the previous half-century (but now under criticism there by the ‘back to the basics’ movement). If Japanese teachers require additional problems for their class, they are usually able to make use of supplementary published manuals containing problems that are related to the authorised textbooks.

(26) Based on the IEA report by Garden, op. cit., table 6.

(27) A recent popular description quotes a large-scale Tokyo Juku at which 12 year-olds attended from 4.50 to 8.50 p.m., with a 20-minute break for supper, every Monday to Friday (Japan Pictorial, vol.7, no.3, 1984, p.25). The remarkably broad study of Japanese culture and education by Glazer (op. cit.) regrettably does not discuss the role of the Juku, and thus does not give an entirely fair account of the educational system and its problems.

(28) The results of the 1985 official survey were reported in Asahi Shimbun, 8 April 1986; a previous survey in 1976 was reported in the Statistical Abstract for 1980. Rohlen, op. cit., p.104, gives references to the other surveys mentioned above which give higher percentages. See also W.K. Cummings, op. cit., pp.212-5. These surveys were carried out by post, with a response rate of 57 per cent reported for 1985; it seems possible that parents with children at Juku would be more likely to respond, and some upward bias may be present.

(29) In the Juku mentioned earlier, a fifth of the pupils are the children of teachers at Prefectural schools ‘who know at first hand that effective study at Japanese Prefectural schools is impossible’. The same article mentions that some mothers do the homework set by the day-school for their children, so that their children should be free to devote their time in the evening to Juku: even if verging on the anecdotal, it is a significant anecdote that Japanese mothers regard themselves—as they are taught in their homecare classes at school—as having reponsibility for their children's educational progress. The important role of the home is made explicit in the recent US Department of Education booklet addressed to parents and schools; the initial dozen pages are devoted to what the home can do to raise children's educational successes (What Works: Research about Teaching and Learning, US Department of Education, 1986). In England, on the other hand, education is regarded as being within the province of the school: it is difficult to imagine the DES addressing parents in a similar way on the role of the home in education.

(30) For the benefit of non-English readers it needs to be explained that those English pupils staying on in school till 16-18 follow highly specialised courses; those not on science courses will usually not attend any mathematics classes at all.

(31) B.J. Wilson, Japan: Mathematics Education, duplicated report to The British Council October 1983, p.3.

(32) See the First Report of the Provisional Council on Educational Reform (English translation, Tokyo, June 1985). The Second Report (a summmary of which was published in English in April 1986) does not indicate any clear decision on six- year secondary schools.

(33) A broad account of vocational training institutions in Japan has been given by Shunichiro Umetani, Education and Vocational Training in Japan, Institut für Asienkunde, Hamburg, 1980, p.108; for our purposes, that is in drawing contrasts with England, that monograph unfortunately gives too little attention to Japanese Vocational Upper Secondary Schools. Appendix C of National Institute Discussion, Paper no.121 gives further information on Special Training Schools. Had resources permitted, the present study would have included a fuller comparison of the standards reached in these schools in view of their large number of pupils; apart from computing studies and data processing, these schools are however of more importance for nursing, dressmaking, book-keeping—that is for the traditional female occupations—than for engineering skills.

(34) In one of the Japanese factories that we visited in England, half of the local top Japanese management were from Technical Secondary Schools.

(35) Akagi, op. cit., p.254; P. Hetherington, in a report on the Nissan car plan near Tokyo, The Guardian, 5 March 1986.

(36) Small firms are much more important in Japanese manufacturing than in Britain: half of all employees in Japanese manufacturing were in establishments with less than 80 employees in 1982, compared with half in local units of under 280 employees in UK manufacturing in 1983. Professor Kazuo Koike of Kyoto University has written extensively on the formation of worker skills in small Japanese firms (see, for example, an article with that title in Japanese Economic Studies; vol.XI, no.4, Summer 1983, pp.,3-57, and the references there).

(37) J. Lorriman, Ichibana—the Japanese approach to engineering education', Electronics and Power, August 1983, p.575.

(38) Productivity levels in that Japanese factory were ‘at least twice as high’ as in the similar British factory. The comment on schooling was by Mr G. Grant, Convenor of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers; see Process Plant EDC, The Challenge from Abroad, NEDO, 1982, pp.4,5,10. The amount of training taking place in the course of employment is always difficult to evaluate because of the ambiguity of ‘on-the-job training’; it is particularly difficult to assess in Japan because the system of publicly-recognised vocational qualifications of the kind familiar in Europe is less important there, Large firms often have their own grading system, and small firms seem to make only limited use of publicly-recognised trade tests. The numbers published as qualifying each year in the latter are much lower than the numbers leaving Vocational Secondary Schools. See T. Ishikawa, Vocational Training, Japan Institute of Labour, Tokyo, 1981, esp. pp. 16-7.

(39) My thanks are due to Dr Aiwa Akagi of the Tokyo Institute for supplying unpublished figures; the statistics relate to ‘Prefecture C’ referred to on p.255 of the article by Akagi et. al. The scores mentioned here relate to the average for all examined subjects; the proportion of pupils with above-average scores in mathematics tended to be slightly higher for pupils entering Technical Schools, but the differences are not great.

(40) Rohlen (pp.28-33) describes a technical evening school which had many unsatisfactory features—low attainments and poor discipline. The reader needs however to keep very much in mind that this school catered ‘for the lowest two per cent (in terms of academic ability)’; the majority of Technical Schools are not of this standard. The Commercial School he describes is unfortunately also not typical, as it catered for pupils from the lowest third of the ability range. On the other hand, among the General Schools he describes is one that has the reputation of having the highest standards in the country. The reader consequently gains a misleading impression of the gap between the average Vocational and the average General School.

(41) The details on sizes of schools are taken from the Japanese Statistical Yearbook 1984; Akagi et al., pp.253,258; and DES, Statistical Bulletin, 11/85.

(42) Further details of the vocational subjects in these courses of study are given in Appendix B of National Institute Discussion Paper no. 121. Specimen timetables ('credits' required) in 1973-4 for General Schools and selected courses in Vocational Schools were given by Anderson, op. cit., pp.150-3. Only small changes have taken place subsequently; see Basic Facts and Figures about the Education System in Japan, National Institute for Educational Research, Tokyo, 1983, pp.27-33, and Hisao Suzuki, Outline of Vocational Education in Japan, Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, 1980, pp.32 et seq. According to the regulations for the Course of Study for Upper Secondary Schools in Japan (amended 1978, effective 1982, English version published by the Ministry of Education, Japan, 1983) mathematics is a stipulated requirement only in the first year of Upper Secondary Schools; in practice, however, it appears from the specimen timetables just mentioned that most courses retain mathematics for the first two years.

(43) For more detail see our previous comparisons with Germany (Prais and Wagner, 1983, pp.56-60).

(44) See Course of Study for Upper Secondary Schools in Japan, op. cit., pp. 10,99,137. The Technical School referred to in this paragraph— as having 20 lathes, etc.—conveniently publishes a School Handbook in English (Tokyo Metropolitan Kuramae Technical High School, 1986).

(45) The information processing course, in addition to computer programming in COBOL, deals with the elements of inventory control and linear programming as part of a final year course on ‘Mathematics for Management’ (Course of Study for Upper Secondary Schools in Japan, op. cit, p.146).

(46) Suzuki, op. cit., pp.37-8,53. The course in technical drawing is subject in many schools to an external examination set by the Association of Technical High School Headmasters. In the better schools about half of all pupils leave with supplemen tary specific certificates; but in most schools the proportion seems to be much lower.

(47) Course of Study for Upper Secondary Schools in Japan, op. cit., p.12. The career prospects of two thirds of a sample of pupils attending Japanese Technical Schools were thought by them to be improved by attending these schools, rather than by attending General Secondary Schools (M.J. Bowman, Educational Choice and Labour Markets in Japan, U. Chicago, 1981, p.243).

(48) See What Works: Research about Teaching and Learning, US Department of Education, 1986, p.7.