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Alexis Parkos

Japanese Education System

Japanese education has topped world statistics for decades. As a

country, they prioritize schoolwork and education. This is evident through

their highly educated population. They work diligently to prioritize

meritocracy the law of the land. The Japanese are often expected to know

more about a country than a person who lives there. They have 100%

enrollment in compulsory grades and zero illiteracy (Japan Overview, 2017).

The administration that oversees their education keeps a close eye on

curriculum, classes, textbooks, etc. in order to maintain the highest standard

of education possible. They have a highly detailed and refined curriculum in

all of their schools. They emphasize not the ability to answer the question

right, but the ability to understand why an answer is the right answer. They

also spend large amounts of time focusing on note taking and being able to

retain information. They try to create the well rounded student that is great

at taking notes, retaining information and understanding the information. An

important aspect of the Japanese education system is that the students that

are being taught are not pushed forward or held back. There are very high

expectations for curriculum mastery for each of the students in each of these

schools.
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The students are held to the same standards, with the same curriculum

and they are exposed to the same school settings all over the country.

Though the country does not have a large amount of funding devoted to

schooling, they use their funding wisely and it affords every student in Japan

the same school experience. They have a no frills experience; simple

books, simple buildings, simple classrooms, no cafeterias. This shows that

not only do they have equal opportunity to education, but they have

opportunity to the same education no matter where they are in the country.

Another way that the Japanese school system promotes equal

opportunities and putting every child in school is by implementing uniforms.

It eliminates discrimination based on wealth or status. It helps to keep the

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focus of their classrooms on the material and not on the material items that

make up their outfits. This also keeps the classroom experience uniform for

students of both genders. Some schools around Arizona have started

requiring that students wear uniforms to school. The schools that are

requiring uniforms have shown several improvements in different areas of

students academics. Another interesting feature of the Japanese school

system is that they are the janitors, meaning that they clean the school. This

saves the Ministry of Education money and allows for the students to learn

responsibility in relation to cleaning up after themselves.

The ministry of education holds all schools to its high standards for

curricular excellence. It is for these reasons that I think that the Japanese

education education system does an outstanding job of putting every child in

school and improving the quality of learning. They work diligently to ensure

that there is high enrollment in the compulsory grades, which means that
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each child is in school for the grades prior to high school. Additionally, they

work to foster global citizenship by educating them highly about other

countries. They want their students, who are the most important product of

their school systems, to be successful globally because these students are a

direct reflection of the success of the school curriculum.

Abe, N. (n.d.). Gogatsu byou - May Sickness. Retrieved April 4, 2017, from

https://www.thoughtco.com/gogatsu-byou-may-sickness-2028297

Japan Overview. (2017). Retrieved April 4, 2017, from http://ncee.org/what-

we-do/center-on- international-education-benchmarking/top-performing-

countries/japan-overview/

Japanese school system | Tokyo International Communication Committee.

(2006). Retrieved April 4, 2017, from https://www.tokyo-

icc.jp/guide_eng/educ/01.html