The Improvement in Children's Scholastic Ability in Public Education

(Oita Godo Newspaper, December 12th 2008, morning page 7)

Moving towards the improvement of the scholastic ability of Japanese children, there have been a lot of independent measures which have been done by local governments, such as the establishment of cramming school by public management, the teaching of English starting from primary school level, the consistent guidance in primary and junior high school.

Besides, Monbukagakusho already changed the "Yutori Education", adding the school hours and contents in the school curriculum in primary and junior high school and they notified public about this in March 2008.

("Yutori Education is a Japanese Education policy which reduces the hours and the content of the curriculum in primary education. In recent years, the mass media in Japan have used this phrase to criticize drops in scholastic ability" Wikipedia)

However, because of parents' and guardians' concern that children's scholastic ability is dropping, children go to 'cram school' outside school hours, and in the past the proportion of students going to 'cram school' is one of every four students in public primary schools.

Comments: Yutori Education was proposed in order to achieve the "free from pressure" education. However, even though the purpose was good, apparently it was not successful since Japanese students are said to become less competitive internationally. Moreover, by establishing 'cram school', it actually defeats the entire purpose of Yutori Education since instead of being free from pressure, children are under pressure to catch up to understand the materials in order to pass examinations. The children go to 'cram school' after school, which means a prolonged version of school hours.

NUGROHO Katarina Marsha Utama

Indonesia

APM2, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University