Dumbing down of Japanese students
Covert
Hello all,
Here's a news story that came out today on the dumbing down of Japanese
students and how the private-sector market is getting a piece of this
action.
Japan's Ministry of Education just can't get any respect these days: On
one side are the educators and critics who blast the ministry's idea of
cutting school hours and other "reforms" as mere window dressing that
won't even come close to solving the nation's ongoing educational crises.
Then there are the other educators and critics who claim just the
opposite, that what public schools in Japan need from the Education
Ministry is not less, but MORE: more school hours, more regulations for
students, more resources for more teachers.
It is from a position of sympathy with this latter camp that Ms.
Kinoshita, the author of the following piece, seems to be writing.
Brian Covert
(KnoK NEWS)
in Osaka, Japan
------------------------------
[Daily Yomiuri - 5 June 2000]
KYOTO ACADEMIA TURNS TO PRIVATE SECTOR FOR HELP
[by] Atsuko Kinoshita
Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
KYOTO -- The nation's university education system has entered a time of
change. Students' academic abilities have worsened noticeably as a result
of the reduction in educational content taught at high schools, which
have recently been set the goal of giving students more breathing room.
In addition, universities are seeing students exhibit the behavior of
high school students, such as skipping classes and not showing the kind
of maturity they previously exhibited upon becoming university students.
More change is on the horizon: In 2009, the decreasing child population
will reach college-entrance age. When that time comes, virtually all of
them will be able to attend university if they wish, as universities are
expected to experience a sharp fall in the number of applicants. This
will undoubtedly heat up competition among universities to acquire a
sufficient number of students to support their operations. Some
universities have already moved to take up the challenge, and Kyoto's
Ryukoku University is one of them. Students in the university's economics
department are currently taking classes in mathematics -- which in itself
is nothing unusual.
What's unusual is that the class is taught by a teacher dispatched from
Sundai Yobi Gakko, one of the nation's leading college-entrance prep
schools. "You break up a number into numbers that can't be divided any
more. This process is called factorizing into prime factors. Take the
number six for example: Its prime factors are two and three," Shinichiro
Ochiai, the Sundai instructor, told one of his classes of about 30
students, who nodded to show they understood.
The class was part of a project started this spring as part of an
initiative of the University Consortium Kyoto, which consists of 48
universities and junior colleges in Kyoto Prefecture. Seven universities
currently hold classes taught by instructors from outside of academia to
help students acquire the basic necessary skills that they failed to
acquire while in high school.
Ochiai's class is well received by the Ryukoku freshmen, one of whom
said: "His teaching is to the point, and it's easy to understand."
But he is disturbed by the surprisingly low skills of his students.
In one of his classes, Ochiai wrote out 10 equation and graph
interpretation problems. One problem was:
0.125x plus 2/5 equals 7/8
which was something the students were supposed to have learned in the
first year of middle school. But despite Ochiai's remark -- "Just relax
and enjoy solving it" -- they apparently could not. They seemed slow in
working through the problem in their notebooks. In fact, only half of
them managed to solve it.
"I'm shocked their skills are so low. It's much worse than simply
forgetting formulas they had learned," Ochiai said. "It seems to me they
lack the ability to think logically. I'm now worried about the future of
Japan. I'm not exaggerating."
Ochiai's class continues for the first half of this year, and by the 12th
and final class, his plan said the students would have understood
economic theories using differential and integral calculus.
"Well, I do hope to get to at least teach differential calculus," Ochiai
said.
Declining academic ability is not a problem that is limited to
mathematics.
Seian College of Art and Design in Nagaoka-kyo in the prefecture holds a
credit course teaching plain old Japanese, just to prop up the students'
often shaky skills in their native tongue.
In the first class this spring, Naoki Kamisaka was teaching how to write
a self-introduction. The class started virtually from the basics of
writing, and thus included such instructions as "Leave the first square
open for an indentation" on the Japanese manuscript sheets provided. Four
hundred squares are printed on each sheet, and each square is filled by a
character or a punctuation mark.
Indeed, Kamisaka, who was dispatched from the Japanese-language and
writing section of Kawai-juku, another leading college-entrance prep
school, detected a problem in students' writing ability.
After he collected the 40 or so students' written papers, he noticed that
they had just written down their thoughts the way they would say them.
"I have a feeling young people's writing skills are affected by writing
e-mail," Kamisaka said. "They are good at dragging on and on about
whatever pops into their mind, but they aren't good at saying what they
want to say in a logical, organized way."
Kamisaka said that, from the second class on, he would present the
students with model texts and teach uses of conjunctions such as "mazu"
(first) and "ippo" (meanwhile). Kamisaka usually teaches test-taking
techniques for college entrance applicants in Kawai-juku's fast-paced
classes, but for Seian students he plans to go slowly, teaching one theme
per class to make sure his students learn to express themselves well in
writing.
According to a survey by the Education Ministry, 43 state-run
universities and 56 private universities conducted courses to boost
students' basic skills in 1998. But the consortium's project is the first
of its kind as it involves multiple universities.
"It's a costly undertaking for a single university, but since we have a
concentration of universities and colleges in Kyoto, we thought we would
be able to conduct the supplementary courses through a cooperative
scheme," said Hiroshi Yamaguchi, an official of the consortium. "And the
important thing for us was to try this idea we came up with."
"At first, faculty members taught supplementary courses, but it seemed
too hard for us to cope with the situation," said Prof. Susumu Misaki of
Ryukoku's economics department. "And university teachers don't have the
necessary experience to conduct supplementary courses. So in the end, we
decided to enlist outside help."
The consortium's project also involves courses taught not only by
prep-school teachers, but other private educational experts.
Starting from the latter half of this academic year, the junior college
of Otani University in Kyoto's Kita Ward is going to offer a course in
verbal communication, including vocal exercises, by an instructor
dispatched from an Osaka temporary-employment agency, which usually
offers such courses for company employees as part of in-company training.
The Department of Food Science and Nutrition at Doshisha Women's College
of Liberal Arts in Kyo-tanabe in the prefecture will have the Nihongo
Bunsho Noryoku Kentei Kyokai (Society for Testing Skills in Written
Japanese) dispatch instructors to teach basic writing skills.
Experts seem to be divided over whether to view the consortium's
initiative as a favorable development or representing a lamentable
situation in university education.
Kazuo Nishimura, who wrote about university students' declining academic
abilities in "Bunsu ga Dekinai Daigakusei" (University Students Who Can't
Handle Fractions), which he coauthored, views the Kyoto institutions'
move favorably.
"Universities usually try to strike a pose as proud institutions, and it
must have been a difficult decision for the (Kyoto) universities and
colleges to enlist outside help," said Nishimura, a professor at Kyoto
University's Institute of Economic Research. "They faced the reality of
the situation bravely and made a courageous decision. These universities
and colleges are working together, and that helps make things work
better. It will also help them solve other problems that may crop up."
But Prof. Hidenori Fujita of Tokyo University's School of Education sees
the situation as evidence that universities are not fulfilling their
functions.
"These schools seem to have first accepted students, and then told them,
'You must learn a few more things (to be able to learn what we teach),'
and that's like putting the cart before the horse," Fujita said. "For
sure, the current situation is one result of the nation's education
system going wrong, and I recognize the need for complementary courses
like theirs."
"But when you get down to the bottom of things, universities must make
clear what they want high schools to teach their prospective applicants,
and make their entrance requirements clear," Fujita said.
The Kyoto universities pay 12,000 yen per class for the complementary
courses, and 200,000 yen for the development of each course. Though it is
not yet clear whether this is a worthwhile investment, one thing is clear
-- as an instructor at one of the prep schools involved put it: "I'm
pretty sure this market for supplementary college courses is going to
grow."
[Copyright 2000 - The Yomiuri Shimbun]
Here's a news story that came out today on the dumbing down of Japanese
students and how the private-sector market is getting a piece of this
action.
Japan's Ministry of Education just can't get any respect these days: On
one side are the educators and critics who blast the ministry's idea of
cutting school hours and other "reforms" as mere window dressing that
won't even come close to solving the nation's ongoing educational crises.
Then there are the other educators and critics who claim just the
opposite, that what public schools in Japan need from the Education
Ministry is not less, but MORE: more school hours, more regulations for
students, more resources for more teachers.
It is from a position of sympathy with this latter camp that Ms.
Kinoshita, the author of the following piece, seems to be writing.
Brian Covert
(KnoK NEWS)
in Osaka, Japan
------------------------------
[Daily Yomiuri - 5 June 2000]
KYOTO ACADEMIA TURNS TO PRIVATE SECTOR FOR HELP
[by] Atsuko Kinoshita
Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
KYOTO -- The nation's university education system has entered a time of
change. Students' academic abilities have worsened noticeably as a result
of the reduction in educational content taught at high schools, which
have recently been set the goal of giving students more breathing room.
In addition, universities are seeing students exhibit the behavior of
high school students, such as skipping classes and not showing the kind
of maturity they previously exhibited upon becoming university students.
More change is on the horizon: In 2009, the decreasing child population
will reach college-entrance age. When that time comes, virtually all of
them will be able to attend university if they wish, as universities are
expected to experience a sharp fall in the number of applicants. This
will undoubtedly heat up competition among universities to acquire a
sufficient number of students to support their operations. Some
universities have already moved to take up the challenge, and Kyoto's
Ryukoku University is one of them. Students in the university's economics
department are currently taking classes in mathematics -- which in itself
is nothing unusual.
What's unusual is that the class is taught by a teacher dispatched from
Sundai Yobi Gakko, one of the nation's leading college-entrance prep
schools. "You break up a number into numbers that can't be divided any
more. This process is called factorizing into prime factors. Take the
number six for example: Its prime factors are two and three," Shinichiro
Ochiai, the Sundai instructor, told one of his classes of about 30
students, who nodded to show they understood.
The class was part of a project started this spring as part of an
initiative of the University Consortium Kyoto, which consists of 48
universities and junior colleges in Kyoto Prefecture. Seven universities
currently hold classes taught by instructors from outside of academia to
help students acquire the basic necessary skills that they failed to
acquire while in high school.
Ochiai's class is well received by the Ryukoku freshmen, one of whom
said: "His teaching is to the point, and it's easy to understand."
But he is disturbed by the surprisingly low skills of his students.
In one of his classes, Ochiai wrote out 10 equation and graph
interpretation problems. One problem was:
0.125x plus 2/5 equals 7/8
which was something the students were supposed to have learned in the
first year of middle school. But despite Ochiai's remark -- "Just relax
and enjoy solving it" -- they apparently could not. They seemed slow in
working through the problem in their notebooks. In fact, only half of
them managed to solve it.
"I'm shocked their skills are so low. It's much worse than simply
forgetting formulas they had learned," Ochiai said. "It seems to me they
lack the ability to think logically. I'm now worried about the future of
Japan. I'm not exaggerating."
Ochiai's class continues for the first half of this year, and by the 12th
and final class, his plan said the students would have understood
economic theories using differential and integral calculus.
"Well, I do hope to get to at least teach differential calculus," Ochiai
said.
Declining academic ability is not a problem that is limited to
mathematics.
Seian College of Art and Design in Nagaoka-kyo in the prefecture holds a
credit course teaching plain old Japanese, just to prop up the students'
often shaky skills in their native tongue.
In the first class this spring, Naoki Kamisaka was teaching how to write
a self-introduction. The class started virtually from the basics of
writing, and thus included such instructions as "Leave the first square
open for an indentation" on the Japanese manuscript sheets provided. Four
hundred squares are printed on each sheet, and each square is filled by a
character or a punctuation mark.
Indeed, Kamisaka, who was dispatched from the Japanese-language and
writing section of Kawai-juku, another leading college-entrance prep
school, detected a problem in students' writing ability.
After he collected the 40 or so students' written papers, he noticed that
they had just written down their thoughts the way they would say them.
"I have a feeling young people's writing skills are affected by writing
e-mail," Kamisaka said. "They are good at dragging on and on about
whatever pops into their mind, but they aren't good at saying what they
want to say in a logical, organized way."
Kamisaka said that, from the second class on, he would present the
students with model texts and teach uses of conjunctions such as "mazu"
(first) and "ippo" (meanwhile). Kamisaka usually teaches test-taking
techniques for college entrance applicants in Kawai-juku's fast-paced
classes, but for Seian students he plans to go slowly, teaching one theme
per class to make sure his students learn to express themselves well in
writing.
According to a survey by the Education Ministry, 43 state-run
universities and 56 private universities conducted courses to boost
students' basic skills in 1998. But the consortium's project is the first
of its kind as it involves multiple universities.
"It's a costly undertaking for a single university, but since we have a
concentration of universities and colleges in Kyoto, we thought we would
be able to conduct the supplementary courses through a cooperative
scheme," said Hiroshi Yamaguchi, an official of the consortium. "And the
important thing for us was to try this idea we came up with."
"At first, faculty members taught supplementary courses, but it seemed
too hard for us to cope with the situation," said Prof. Susumu Misaki of
Ryukoku's economics department. "And university teachers don't have the
necessary experience to conduct supplementary courses. So in the end, we
decided to enlist outside help."
The consortium's project also involves courses taught not only by
prep-school teachers, but other private educational experts.
Starting from the latter half of this academic year, the junior college
of Otani University in Kyoto's Kita Ward is going to offer a course in
verbal communication, including vocal exercises, by an instructor
dispatched from an Osaka temporary-employment agency, which usually
offers such courses for company employees as part of in-company training.
The Department of Food Science and Nutrition at Doshisha Women's College
of Liberal Arts in Kyo-tanabe in the prefecture will have the Nihongo
Bunsho Noryoku Kentei Kyokai (Society for Testing Skills in Written
Japanese) dispatch instructors to teach basic writing skills.
Experts seem to be divided over whether to view the consortium's
initiative as a favorable development or representing a lamentable
situation in university education.
Kazuo Nishimura, who wrote about university students' declining academic
abilities in "Bunsu ga Dekinai Daigakusei" (University Students Who Can't
Handle Fractions), which he coauthored, views the Kyoto institutions'
move favorably.
"Universities usually try to strike a pose as proud institutions, and it
must have been a difficult decision for the (Kyoto) universities and
colleges to enlist outside help," said Nishimura, a professor at Kyoto
University's Institute of Economic Research. "They faced the reality of
the situation bravely and made a courageous decision. These universities
and colleges are working together, and that helps make things work
better. It will also help them solve other problems that may crop up."
But Prof. Hidenori Fujita of Tokyo University's School of Education sees
the situation as evidence that universities are not fulfilling their
functions.
"These schools seem to have first accepted students, and then told them,
'You must learn a few more things (to be able to learn what we teach),'
and that's like putting the cart before the horse," Fujita said. "For
sure, the current situation is one result of the nation's education
system going wrong, and I recognize the need for complementary courses
like theirs."
"But when you get down to the bottom of things, universities must make
clear what they want high schools to teach their prospective applicants,
and make their entrance requirements clear," Fujita said.
The Kyoto universities pay 12,000 yen per class for the complementary
courses, and 200,000 yen for the development of each course. Though it is
not yet clear whether this is a worthwhile investment, one thing is clear
-- as an instructor at one of the prep schools involved put it: "I'm
pretty sure this market for supplementary college courses is going to
grow."
[Copyright 2000 - The Yomiuri Shimbun]