Japan Might Be What Equality in Education Looks Like

[Judi Lynn]

The country’s government makes sure areas with low income levels and property values get good teachers too.




A boy plays in the hallway of a school in Japan
A boy plays in a school in Koriyama, JapanToru Hanai / Reuters

ALANA SEMUELS AUG 2, 2017

KAWAMATA, Japan—In many countries, the United States included, students’ economic backgrounds often determine the quality of the education they receive. Richer students tend to go to schools funded by high property taxes, with top-notch facilities and staff that help them succeed. In districts where poorer students live, students often get shoddy facilities, out-of-date textbooks, and fewer guidance counselors.

Not in Japan. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a group of 35 wealthy countries, Japan ranks highly among its peers in providing its rich and poor students with equal educational opportunities: The OECD estimates that in Japan only about 9 percent of the variation in student performance is explained by students’ socioeconomic backgrounds. The OECD average is 14 percent, and in the United States, it’s 17 percent. “In Japan, you may have poor areas, but you don’t have poor schools,” John Mock, an anthropologist at Temple University’s Japan campus, told me.

Perhaps as a result, fewer students in Japan struggle and drop out of school—the country’s high-school graduation rate, at 96.7 percent, is much higher than the OECD average and the high-school graduation rate in the United States, which is 83 percent. Plus, poorer children in Japan are more likely to grow up to be better off in adulthood, compared to those in countries like the U.S. and Britain (though Scandinavian countries lead in this regard). “It’s one of the few [education] systems that does well for almost any student,” Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the OECD's work on education and skills development, told me, adding, “Disadvantage is really seen as a collective responsibility.”

For instance, in the village of Iitate, which was evacuated after being contaminated by radiation after the Fukushima nuclear-power-plant disaster in March 2011, many families still have not come back. Piles of contaminated soil, covered up, still dot the landscape, and many homes are shuttered. The local primary school has just 51 students, compared to more than 200 before the accident. Yet the quality of education given to returnees is top-notch. The government built a new school for students outside the radiation zone, in a town called Kawamata, and though the classes are still very small—first grade has only two students—the school is well staffed. In a classroom I visited, all five second-graders in the school watched a teacher demonstrate flower-arranging as three other teachers surrounded them, helping them with each step. In another, a math teacher quizzed students on odd and even numbers, and as the students split into groups to discuss a problem on the board, another teacher leaned in to help. Walking around the school, it almost seemed there were as many teachers as students.

More:
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/08/japan-equal-education-school-cost/535611/

[Nitram]

1. I lived in Japan for 21 years, and I am very familiar with the country. This story leaves out..

a major part of the story of education in Japan. While education in elementary school focuses on cooperation and group work, things change as they pass through middle school and high school. Students who can't keep up find themselves isolated and shunned. Students who find the classes boring because they are ready for more challenging material have no recourse. It's a one-size-fits-all approach to education, aimed at the lowest common denominator.

"Japanese teachers are rewarded with a great deal of autonomy on how to improve student outcomes"
As long as they stick tightly to the national curriculum. There is absolutely no wiggle room in regard to a very proscriptive and strictly defined course of study at every grade. innovative or original teaching methods are frowned upon and strongly discouraged.

"Japan ranks highly among its peers in providing its rich and poor students with equal educational opportunities."
To some extent true, but if one wants to get employment at the most prestigious, best-paying companies, or enter government service, it is absolutely essential that one get into one of the most prestigious national schools. That can only be accomplished by taking classes every evening from 6:00 to 10:00 (or later) at private "juku" cram schools. Only parents who can afford them can give their kids that advantage. And only kids who can perform under the pressure of that amount of constant study can survive a cram school. Kids who attend juku usually get about 5 or fewer hours of sleep a night, what with cram school classes and homework.

"The emphasis, he says, is not as much on absorbing content as it is on teaching students how to think."
Japanese eduction is actually famous for doing the exact opposite, with great emphasis on memorization and rote learning. There is only one answer that is correct, and that is what the teacher has said. Most Japanese will tell you that American schools are famous in Japan for encouraging creativity and critical thinking. Clearly American eduction does not always reach that goal, but there are a lot more teachers in the US who encourage their students to think outside the box.

“The Japanese education system tries to minimize the gap between the good students and everyone else,”
That is very true. At the expense of boring more advanced students and turning off those who are more creative and open-minded.