The Future of Education in the UK and Japan

Summary

This fourth seminar in the 2011 series, Uncertain Futures: The Individual, Society and the State in the UK and Japan, considered the role of education in society and the pressures of adapting education policy to changing needs. The ebb and flow of educational reforms in past decades has seen British and Japanese models held up for scrutiny or emulation. Individualism, internationalization and the information age have, at different times, informed debates on ideology and practice. The discussion focused upon core values in education and aspirations for children, families and schools in the UK and Japan.

The chair, Baroness Morris, prefaced the presentations by wondering whether education leads to shifts in society or whether it reacts to societal change. Judging that education encompasses both aspects, she went on to say that education is about individual aspiration. Post-war, the notion of what education can do for the nation also became important and, in the last ten years, what education can provide globally has also become a feature. Schools and universities have always managed to deliver what has been expected of them. Demands have steadily increased, however, and continuing societal changes will impact, inevitably, on further educational and societal pressures.

The first speaker, Professor Roger Goodman, reflected on his entire experience of comparing the Japanese and British education systems since 1982. With the tide of economic change, UK perceptions of Japan have fluctuated over the decades. It is striking that structures and policy in Japan have changed more over the last 25 years than practices, Goodman pointed out, reflecting shifting economics and the evolution of what we consider good and bad.

From the 1980s to the mid-1990s, Japan was at the pinnacle of the global educational league tables, per child education was quite cheap and illiterate or innumerate students simply did not exist. Added to this was the fact that a much higher ratio of students entered university than in the UK, all of which went into making Japan an interesting model from which much could be learnt.

The key elements bolstering the belief that Japan in the 1980s could provide lessons and which explained the effectiveness of the Japanese education system were its emphasis on cultural homogeneity and harmony, the group ethos, duty, dependence, centralisation and meritocracy.

With the bursting of the Japanese economic bubble in 1989 and the ensuing recession, Japan, in a reversal of fortunes, increasingly looked to the UK from the mid-1990s onwards. The UK was achieving outstanding success in the Higher Education international league tables at a time when Japanese universities were performing badly and Japan needed to revive its export economy and increase levels of creativity.  Initiating a process of deregulation, albeit in a highly regulated manner, Japanese educationalists also began considering issues of parental choice and market forces in the sphere of education.

Reviewing the literature of the last ten years to glean why the Japanese education system is in decline, Goodman commented that, paradoxically, exactly the same reasons used to account for its success in the 1980s were now being blamed for its demise, illustrating the fact that educational systems, enmeshed as they are in a social, political, historical and cultural context, are never static. In an about turn, the clamour became one for heterogeneity, an entrepreneurial spirit, and independence rather than an adherence to homogeneity, harmony and the group.

Turning to the question of practice, Goodman commented on the role of teachers in Japan as being broader and extending further than is the case in Britain. Police will contact teachers rather than parents in the case of any trouble caused by a student and homeroom teachers have a statutory obligation to visit students at home. Teachers in Japan are also accorded a higher status than other professionals with a similar educational background. The Japanese word for teacher, sensei, is in itself a term of respect.  Teachers in Japan view children as being able to learn anything given the necessary effort and resist categorising students as being musical, artistic or otherwise. All are imbued with maximum ability and teachers have high expectations of them.

Are our educational systems really changing, wondered Goodman. In citing William Cummings, professor of international education and international affairs at George Washington University, he concluded by saying that they had altered very little despite socio-political change. England’s ideal still seems to be that of raising ‘educated gentlemen’ in many respects while Japan’s aims for its school leavers is that they will make a ‘competent contribution to the group’.

The second speaker, Dr Anthony Seldon, began by concurring with Goodman. When he embarked on his career, he noted, the Japanese education system was widely aspired to, whereas no one seems to be talking about it at the moment. There is a tremendous lack of awareness about Japan despite the fact that Japan is a deeply important country he commented.

Governments, higher education and employers are the top-down drivers who are determining the objectives of schooling, regretted Seldon. Governments, he ventured, don’t understand education. They consider it an end and are eager to see their schools at the top of the international league tables, overlooking the fact that those who do best in a test aren’t necessarily the best educated. Rather than a top-down approach, Seldon proposed looking, instead, at what each child needs in order to develop.

While in favour of the status accorded teachers in Japan, the importance given to the group, and the high student aspirations, Seldon was critical of teacher over-involvement. This tendency of Japanese teachers could lead to atrophy and prevent children from becoming independent and autonomous, he warned. Independence is important in empowering students but also teachers, remarked Seldon, as once accorded more trust, teachers and students will become more engaged as a result.

Seldon praised some of the truly exciting schools in the United States, which are international in thinking as well as endowed with a breadth of imagination. British schools would benefit by learning from them as well as by embracing the digital revolution. Libraries need to be living spaces and our educational systems need to be made with children in mind commented Seldon.

While the UK state sector has improved considerably since 1997, in particular with the establishment of the forward-thinking state academies, the UK’s independent sector, comprising 7% of school students, has become complacent and fallen in the hands of dull, inward-looking heads in many cases, bemoaned Seldon.

In order to best nurture students, educational systems should view education as being both holistic and academic, while valuing students’ logical, linguistic, kinaesthetic, interpersonal and moral aptitudes amongst others. It will be fascinating to see what will happen in the next five years he concluded.

Baroness Morris agreed that the connection between well-being and achievement must be noted and lamented the fact that the language associated with well-being is, unfairly, often regarded as soppy and lacking in substance.  While she felt teacher status had improved in the UK as the wider society had come to understand what a difficult profession it is, she remarked that more disrespect, however, is being displayed by a smaller number of parents.

The questions and answers following the talks were varied and lively and covered themes such as the genesis of the independent education sector in Japan, the fact that the better schools in Japan tend to be state controlled, that while Japanese schools are heavily subsidised there is minimal investment in capital buildings, that 40% of universities in Japan are currently below quota and face the possibility of bankruptcy or amalgamation; that in Japan all children learn music and how to draw to a high standard as these subjects are given the same weight that numeracy and literacy are in the UK and that while A Levels have considerably changed in format they have kept the same label; while students still arrive at university well prepared they now do so in a different way with which not all academics are familiar.

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