ラベル Education in Japan の投稿を表示しています。 すべての投稿を表示
ラベル Education in Japan の投稿を表示しています。 すべての投稿を表示

2018年4月9日月曜日

EDU-JPN:What Happens when there are Mistakes on the University Entrance Exams?

Education in Japan (Natalie Collor)

The Assistant Dean at Osaka University, Kobayashi Tadashi, recently spoke about the mistake found on the university’s entrance exam last year and acknowledged the university staff was at fault for roughly thirty students being rejected from the school because their correct answer was considered invalid. It took over eight months for the university to investigate this matter and realize that an alternative solution was possible and completely correct. In addition to accepting all fault for this occurrence, the university is prepared to offer admittance to all the students rejected based on their answer to this problem on last year’s test. However, it may be too little too late for some students.

Since entrance exams are taken just months before the first day of university classes, students have very little time to decide their future after the results of the exams are released. If students do not pass the exam at their top choice university, most of them choose one of two options: to enter a prep school for a year and retake their desired school’s exam the next year, or to enter a different program at the same school or a completely different school. Therefore, the students who have retroactively been given admission to Osaka University may already be nearing the end of their first year at a different school and find it difficult to transfer to Osaka University. Others may have already spent an additional year’s worth of money and energy preparing to re-take the exam in a few weeks.

Each student will likely have to make a decision very soon, because the university only has a specific number of seats available in each year of admission. Dean Kobayashi also spoke on how this unexpected situation created a bit of chaos in calculating the size of this year’s incoming class.

This is not the first time a university entrance exam was not graded accurately and the results mistakenly rejected a large number of students. The man responsible for bringing light to an alternative answer on the Osaka University entrance exam, Yoshida Hiroyuki, added his two cents on the issue. He said that while human errors are impossible to avoid completely on man-made tests like university entrance exams, he wished the university would have begun an investigation much sooner to resolve the error. Perhaps then the university admissions staff would not be scrambling down to the wire to figure out the exact number of students to grant admission to this year.
投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2018年4月2日月曜日

EDU-JPN:Cell phone apps quickly becoming a reliable study partner for students

Education in Japan (Natalie Collor)

Technological advances are often talked about in educational settings with reference to how they improve the classroom environment, but these improvements in technology can affect students’ success outside the classroom, too. In recent years, the development of many cell phone apps geared towards preparing students for entrance exams has skyrocketed. Nearly 95% of high school students have smart phones, thus giving them access to these study apps.

One popular app is called “Study Plus,” and the company estimates that over 200,000 students nationwide use this app. Given that many students have positive experiences with these apps as well as the fact that smart phones are becoming the main platform through which most communication is completed, it is likely that the number of educational apps will only continue to grow and their features continue to expand.

It is no surprise then that improvements in smart phone accessories have been made to make this type of studying easier. Stylus pens have become very popular add-ons for written exercises. In addition, book publishers have digitized all of the paper materials so that students can access practice problems, answer keys, and explanation videos all through their phone.

On exam day last year, even on their way to the exam, students were trying to get in one last study session via the Study Plus App. Although most students appreciate the convenience of being able to watch explanation videos on their phones and find productive ways to use the time they spend commuting, some students say they are tempted to use their phone for gaming or social purposes. Additional students commented that having control of explanation videos allowed them to process the material at their own pace and review important or difficult concepts as many times as necessary.

Of course, the use of these apps cannot guarantee success on the exams or in general studies, but the creation of these apps allows students for greater educational opportunities and mediums that suit their individual learning styles.
投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2018年3月26日月曜日

EDU-JPN:Tis the Season…for the Flu

Education in Japan (Natalie Collor)

In most places, the influenza virus is hard to avoid, even though many people receive a yearly vaccine to improve their odds of contracting the virus. Japan is no different, but its schools have measures in place to help prevent large-scale spreading of the virus.

One tactic most schools have in place is to ‘suspend’ students if the number of students with the virus is between 20% and 33% of the whole homeroom class. For three to five days, students are not allowed to come to school. Unlike the American use of ‘suspend,’ this action does not punish students or reflect badly on their academic record. They simply stay at home and do whatever homework they are able to without attending class and, for some, while managing sickness. In terms of the schoolwide spread of the virus, if just 10% of students in a specific grade to contract influenza, the whole grade will be suspended for a short period of time. Since the influenza virus is spread very easily through skin-to-skin contact, school administrators believe the best way to prevent mass spreading throughout schools is to suspend students in the given ways.

Although January and February are typically thought of as flu season, there were schools in Gunma Prefecture that announced the first cases of influenza spreading as early as November of 2017. There were several schools that suspended individual classes and whole grades, so flu season is already well underway in Japan.

While students may be quick to celebrate this guilt-free suspension which allows them to stay at home to rest, watch TV, or play video games, teachers are not as pleased when their students are suspended. They cannot move forward with the material according to the curriculum when all students are missing, therein making homework very repetitive. Teachers may appreciate having an extra break period or two, given the busy day-to-day workload, but the result of numerous cancelled classes due to the suspension puts them in a difficult position. The more students that are missing, the less teachers are actually able to accomplish during the school day. No matter how long the students are missing from school, they are expected to finish the standard curriculum for each subject by the end of the school year, which means teachers have to find ways to add in make-up classes and homework assignments. This situation reflects the snow day phenomenon in American schools, where students are happy to have time off in the winter, but unhappy to be making everything up during the dog days of summer.
投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2018年3月19日月曜日

EDU-JPN:How Influenza Affects Exam Season

Education in Japan (Natalie Collor)

Once the new calendar year begins in Japan, and sometimes even before, many middle and high school students’ minds are occupied with thoughts of one thing: university entrance exams. A previous post has addressed the specifics of the exam schedule and the vigorous preparation these students undergo to score well on the standardized exams. However, an additional variable at play in exam season is, in fact, influenza.

Not only is the number of third-year middle and high school students who receive the vaccine more than any other grade level, but it is also very likely that these students do not receive the vaccine every year. Students and parents in Japan know the importance of being well during the exam, not to mention the months leading up to it; therefore, they do all they can to prevent contracting the virus by getting the vaccine. In some cases, all members in a family are said to get the vaccine in order to protect the examinee. News programs and school nurses also encourage students to wear masks and wash hands regularly as other preventative measures.

Vaccines are not a guarantee, however, and as the importance of entrance exams grows, so does the necessity of students being able to take the exam in a healthy state. Despite taking all the preventative measures leading up to the exam, some students still end up sick during the exam day. A makeup test day, which would certainly give those students unable to take the exam due to illness a second chance, is an idea that has recently been implemented by high schools in some regions. Although makeup test days are not available for every high school, this special option for ill students may improve their chances of doing well on the test and gaining admission to the high school of their choice. Each high school offering a makeup test date likely announces the date ahead of time and a corresponding process to follow to register for said test.

Although a similar makeup test day equivalent does not yet exist for college entrance exams, one can only wonder, given the extremely competitive nature of the exams and the unpredictability of contracting illness, if this option will exist in the future.
投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2017年11月22日水曜日

EDU-JPN: Corporal Punishment in an Aichi Prefectural Elementary School

Education in Japan (Natalie Collor)

Recently, at an elementary school in Toyohashi City, Aichi Prefecture, a male homeroom teacher in his forties was found guilty of physically harming five of his students during a math class. Reports say that the incident occurred while the class was checking answers to an assignment. When many students did not understand the material in the way the teacher explained, he lost his temper and began physically harming his students. He hit a few boys on their heads with rulers. He even smacked one girl’s head against the blackboard. Since the day of this incident, this female student has not been able to return to school. The guilty teacher has publicly apologized for his actions and is currently taking an indefinite leave of absence. 

This incident, however, was not the first time this teacher has been accused of physically harming his students. Two years ago, he pushed a student down, and the student suffered a neck and shoulder injury. Perhaps the teacher was able to keep his job at this time because the boy’s parents and school administrators viewed this incident as an accident, not corporal punishment. 

Investigations related to this violent incident are ongoing, and the Toyohashi City Board of Education is slowly releasing information regarding the events that occurred. Area parents and school employees are no doubt on edge about the future of this teacher’s career in public schools. 
投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2017年10月16日月曜日

EDU-JPN: Background of the success of Japanese PISA result compare to U.S. -Part III

Education in Japan (Natalie Collor)

Social status


While the concept that higher income directly relates to higher academic success is one held throughout the world, the degree to which it holds true varies across the world. The PISA survey also includes data on performance as it relates to students’ socioeconomic status and disproves this general idea in many countries. The socioeconomic makeups of Japan and the U.S. are different, so it is important to interpret the results of PISA individually.

Japan has an above-average score in science performance and equity in education. The strength of this relationship is below average, which means performance in science isn’t essentially a result of one’s social status. In the U.S., however, science performance was above average, but the nation’s equality in education was below average. This implies that class and status largely affect one’s ability to perform well in science. Funding limitations and staff shortages are very common in some areas of the U.S., and, as shown by the results of the PISA, science aptitude suffers greatly when students lack the support and materials necessary to study. A key takeaway for the U.S. is to increase funding for science teachers and materials in areas with lower incomes. Students in Japan, on the other hand, seem to be benefitting from access to similar amounts of educational support and materials.

Overall Educational Practices

Students in both the U.S. and Japan did better than average on all three sections of the PISA exam. A closer look at the individual section results, students’ motivations for each subject, and gender discrepancies provides further information on the educational methods used and their efficacy as shown by the students’ results on the PISA survey. Based on these results, it may be easy to assume Japanese educational practices are more effective or better than those in the U.S., however, it is also important to realize PISA is just one of many standardized tests meant to measure intelligence and efficacy of instruction. The public must also remember there are other ways in which students and educational techniques can be evaluated.



投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2017年10月9日月曜日

EDU-JPN:Background of the success of Japanese PISA result compare to U.S -Part II

Education in Japan (Natalie Collor)

Discussion of PISA results

In the previous article, the most recent PISA results for the United States and Japan were given and compared in a general sense. Japan has much high scores than the U.S. on all three subject areas—science, math, and reading—of the PISA survey, and is one of the highest-scoring countries overall. A closer look at the results in each subject tells more about each country’s educational methods and how students feel toward the tested subjects. The first part of this article will provide a more detailed discussion of the results based on gender, while the second part will focus on what the socioeconomic status of students says about their performance on the PISA survey. Both parts will also speculate what the discrepancies in student performance say about education practices in both countries.

Gender

Gender differences are apparent in the PISA results of both countries. In the science and mathematics sections of the PISA test, boys scored higher than girls on average. When these students were asked about what field they expect to work in, a higher percentage of boys expected to be working in a science-related field than girls. The totals were 19% of Japanese boys vs. 18% of Japanese girls and 25% of American boys vs. 24% of American girls. Surprisingly, even though Japan’s average score in science is quite higher than that of the U.S., more students in the U.S. picture themselves in a science-related job later in life. This result suggests that students in the U.S. experience slightly more enjoyment in science-related activities, and further research may need to be done to figure out what exactly is the source of this difference.

A similar performance gap between girls and boys occurs in the math section of the test, but girls outperform boys in the reading section of the test in both countries. Although the performance gap is much less in the reading section, it is interesting that there is a flip in gender dominance when a non-scientific field is examined.




投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2017年10月2日月曜日

EDU-JPN: Background of the success of Japanese PISA result compare to U.S. -Part I

Education in Japan (Natalie Collor)

An Introduction to PISA

PISA is the acronym used by the Program for International Student Assessment, an organization that surveys education systems across the globe by testing hundreds of thousands of students in over seventy countries. PISA creates a two-hour test in the areas of science, math, and reading for students around the age of fifteen and administers the test to select schools and regions every three years to track educational developments worldwide. The results of the PISA surveys can be very useful in both domestic and international education spheres.

In addition to administering surveys to evaluate student performance in these three areas, PISA is also very involved in improving the state of education in low-income countries by helping students become better learners and teachers becoming better instructors.

Results of the 2015 PISA Survey

The first PISA survey was administered in 2000, and the most recent PISA survey was given in 2015. Countless interesting analyses are possible when comparing the results of all the countries participating in this survey; however, the current essay is concerned with the results of Japan compared to those of the United States. Although these two countries may have a lot in common economically and politically, the results of the PISA survey would suggest these two countries have significant differences in educational practices.

The results of the most recent PISA survey suggest Japan’s educational system is more suited to preparing students for tests and surveys like PISA, as Japanese students scored higher on average than American students in all three areas tested. Japan is one of the leading countries in science—trailing only Singapore—and has been for many iterations of the survey. Moreover, Japan has outscored the U.S. in all three areas tested on PISA surveys for many years.
投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2017年7月25日火曜日

EDU-JPN:Kake Gakuen Scandal: Maekawa’s Word against Prime Minister Abe’s

Education in Japan (Natalie Collor)

For more than a decade, MEXT has not granted approval for any higher education academic institution’s wish to create a veterinary program with the belief that more programs would create unnecessary competition in the field. Last November, however, Prime Minister Abe approved Kake Gakuen’s request for a veterinary program. Abe, who is publically known to be good friends with the institution’s chairman Kotaro Kake, granted this special permission only to Kake Gakuen and all other institutions were denied their expansion requests.

The documents, including transcripts from the approval meetings, as well as the influence of Prime Minister Abe’s opinion on this matter, hold great weight in this scandal, but MEXT first announced that it could not locate the documents. Soon after this, bureaucrat Kihei Maekawa stated publically that he knew for sure that the documents existed, suggesting that MEXT was hiding something in their inability to produce the documents.

An interesting twist to this scandal involved a Yomiuri Newspaper article outing Kihei Maekawa for going to a risqué bar. For a national newspaper to focus on the personal life of a politician is very rare, and the public may be wondering why such an article was written. Did Yomiuri, a newspaper in support of Prime Minister Abe’s Administration, want to scare off Maekawa and his claims concerning Abe’s statements in the official documents? The public knows so little about the hidden interactions involved in this matter, so the best they can do is speculate.

Upon a second search, MEXT found the documents that Maekawa spoke of. The words of Prime Minister Abe in these transcripts have since been scrutinized by the media and other politicians. Was he overly persuasive in encouraging his inferiors to approve this request for personal gain, or was he so passionate in his speech because he truly believed Kake Gakuen would benefit from the expansion?

While details from this scandal are still being released and the public may never know Abe’s true intentions or motives, there is one alarming implication from this scandal. If the suspicions about Abe’s personal interests in this matter, as well as Yomiuri’s intentional outing of Maekawa are true, Japan would become yet another country whose government leaks private information in order to protect its own interests. Although this is primarily speculation, many Japanese people—even politicians—are in disbelief that such questionable behavior could possibly occur in this country.
投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2017年7月3日月曜日

EDU-JPN:Moritomo Gakuen Scandal Part 2: The latest developments

Education in Japan (Natalie Collor)

One major development in the Moritomo Gakuen scandal is the loss of official documents. At the beginning of this month, it was revealed that the written documents and digital data from official land purchasing negotiations between Moritomo Gakuen and the government had been destroyed by the Ministry of Finance. Because of this event, the ministry had to update its information systems by the 2nd of this month.

Therefore, NEC, the company entrusted with the ministry’s data and documents has begun its efforts to retrieve them. One worry is that without these documents, getting to the truth of this scandal will become nearly impossible. The Ministry of Finance is requesting that NEC retrieve physical data by July 31st of this year. On the other hand, the opposition party worries that, in its honest efforts to bring back the original data for the sake of this investigation, the public will think they are concealing information and develop a negative view. Therefore, one representative, Mr. Takashi Takai, was hoping for a freeze on the data retrieval, but the Ministry of Finance did not grant his request.

It has also become a court order for Moritomo Gakuen employee computer data to be restored on the belief that today’s technology is so advanced that even if all the data was once deleted, there are ways to retrieve it. The attorney involved in this case believes there is certainly a way to retrieve the data and that this data from the official negotiations is the key to understanding what really happened between Moritomo Gakuen and the government. 

Both the communist and democratic parties want to protect the transparency of this issue, so they jointly submitted a revised record of their national assets to the House of Councilors. Since news of this scandal has come to light, more than four months have passed. However, an accurate explanation of what truly happened and an appropriate resolution for the parties involved are likely still months away.
投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2017年6月26日月曜日

EDU-JPN:Moritomo Gakuen Scandal Part 1: A Summary


Education in Japan(Natalie Collor)

In February of this year, it was revealed that an Osaka-based education entity called Moritomo Gakuen purchased government land at a discounted rate. This institution had plans to build a one-of-a-kind private school that educated students based on conservative, nationalist views, but its construction plans were put on hold after this controversial incident. The news that a conservative, nationalist institution may have worked closely with the government to illegally obtain cheap land unsurprisingly caused a nationwide scandal, but this was only the beginning of the story.

Yasunori Kagoike, the then Moritomo Gakuen Chairman, publically announced that the institution received a donation of 1 million yen, roughly 9,000 dollars, from Prime Minister Abe for the school’s construction. Kagoike claimed that the donation was given to him through Akie Abe, the prime minister’s wife. Less than two weeks later, Prime Minister Abe gave an official response that if he or his wife were found to be involved with this deal, he would give up his roles as prime minister and a member of the Diet.

In late March, Kagoike was summoned to the National Diet for testimony regarding this scandal, and he again claimed that he received a donation directly from Akie Abe. In addition, he testified that there were other Diet members from Osaka involved in this scandal, thus generating even more attention from the media.

In April, Kagoike stepped down as the Chairman, and those duties were passed on to his oldest daughter, Mrs. Chinami. Moritomo Gakuen adopted an altered plan for the construction of its school, and at the end of the month, the city of Osaka decided to begin paperwork to implement these plans and move forward with the construction of this school, despite not having answers to very important questions regarding this messy situation.
投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2017年6月19日月曜日

EDU-JPN:An even shorter summer vacation?

Education in Japan(Natalie Collor)

Summer vacation for most Japanese schools lasts between three and five weeks. When Japanese children hear about the length of summer vacation in other countries, they are often shocked at the long duration of this break. For example, most schools in the U.S. have at least two months off for summer break. Although the summer breaks in Japan may already seem short when compared to elsewhere, the government has decided to shorten it even more. Starting during the 2018-2019 school year, it has been decided by the Japanese government that public elementary, middle, and high schools will have a shortened summer break.

The specific dates and length of summer break will likely still vary according to the region, but the main idea is to shorten summer break by about five days in order to extend spring and fall breaks by a couple days to a ten-day break. The rationale behind this decision is to create a nationwide “Kid’s Week” during which working parents can also take days off from work and the whole family can go on trips together. Another belief is that having balanced breaks from school will allow students and teachers to establish more consistency at school.

Other changes to the curriculum and education system, such as the inclusion of English as a regular subject for 3rd and 4th grade elementary school students in 2020 as well as the English interview component to entrance exams in the same year, are thought to also benefit from this schedule change. In the coming months, local governments will meet to discuss these new changes and decide the specific dates of spring, summer, fall, and winter breaks according to their specific region.

投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2017年6月12日月曜日

EDU-JPN:How much do parents know about the STEM Curriculum?

 Education in japan(Natalie Collor)

In a recent JustSystems Corporation survey of over 1,600 parents with elementary school children, it was reported that just under 40% of parents knew that programming will become a required subject as of 2020. Almost half the parents responded that they send their children to programming lessons in order to increase their creative power, and about 40% of parents believe skills built during programming lessons are applicable to other subjects. Building programming skills is the first step for success within the STEM Curriculum.

Around 70% of parents see the merits of the STEM Curriculum and around the same percentage feel this type of curriculum is important, but only 11% feel that they can explain the curriculum and its goals to another person.

From the results of this survey, the administers can infer that the general awareness of the STEM Curriculum among parents has spread widely, but most of these parents do not know the specific details of the curriculum and how it will affect future generations of children. In the coming months and years, more detailed information will surely reach these parents. MEXT and other educational organizations have already decided to start promoting programming educational materials aimed at elementary school students.
投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2017年6月5日月曜日

EDU-JPN:Financial Support for Impoverished Children

Education in Japan(Natalie Collar)

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology held a hearing on March 23rd to discuss the public comments based on previously announced plans for educational reform. Among forty groups of people and individuals, there were over 150 opinions submitted. The majority of the comments dealt with the current situation of education in Japan, the problems it faces, and general plans for future education policies. Most of the opinions geared towards the state of education mentioned the need for implementing a plan to address the serious problem of supporting children living in poverty. Although the specific details for plans to address the needs for financial support for impoverished children have yet to be announced, it is an issue that is likely to remain central to the committee’s discussions. 

Earlier this month, the Wakayama Prefectural Board of Education announced that it was seeking opinions of residents regarding the treatment of impoverished children. The prefecture recently made public its new five-year plan to take action to help children living in poverty, so it would like to hear opinions and ideas from all types of people living in Wakayama. Included in the proposal are twenty indices including percentages of children’s continuation rate to college and the percentages of jobs among single-parent households. The prefectural leaders have divided the plan into four parts: Education Support, Lifestyle Support, Employment Support for Guardians, and Economical Support. They even introduced plans for supporting children in attaining meals at a reduced price.
投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2017年5月29日月曜日

EDU-JPN:What is the STEM Curriculum?

 Education in japan(Natalie Collor)

STEM is an acronym for an educational curriculum that emphasizes the following four pillars: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The primary goal is to prepare students with awareness and skills that will serve them well in a high-tech industry. The STEM Curriculum got its start in America in the 1990s, but it was not widely accepted by the nation until 2010 with President Obama’s support.

Starting in the 2020 school year, elementary schools in Japan will be introducing computer programming as an official subject. This change is seen as a part of a larger plan to prepare Japanese children for high-tech society of the future. The inclusion of programming in the official elementary school curriculum is considered to be the first step for climbing up the STEM Curriculum ladder. Administrators are rationalizing the decision to expose children to this aspect of the STEM Curriculum at a young age in order to help build their interest in computer-related content. They also hope this early exposure will provide a foundation for the difficult material in their middle and high school classes.

Future outlook on jobs may also be a source of rationale for the implementation of a new curriculum. In order to prevent today’s children from being jobless once they reach adulthood, teaching them the computer and technology skills they will need in this already AI and IT-based society is a must.

 
投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2017年3月10日金曜日

EDU-JPN:Education of Immigrant Children in Japan

 Education in japan(Natalie Collor)

For economic and political reasons, immigration to Japan has seen increases in the last couple decades. The influx of non-Japanese residents has brought along many social issues that Japan is facing for the first time. For example, many immigrants have children with them when they arrive in Japan or birth children while living in Japan. How to integrate these children into Japanese schools has recently generated a lot of press.

After elementary school students enter the fourth grade, they lose the opportunity for Japanese language support provided by the school. This means that students, Japanese or foreign-born, unable to comprehend everyday Japanese will likely struggle to understand what they are being taught and progress at a slower rate. In an attempt to prevent students from falling behind, a special classroom focused on helping students specifically with their Japanese language skills was established at Abeno Junior High School near the tallest skyscraper in Japan, the Abeno Harukas Building in Osaka. This “Center School” is led by volunteers, and is for students in elementary and middle school. They visit the school twice a week for two-hour visits and are instructed one-by-one to ensure their weaknesses are being addressed. In theory, students attending this school can acquire basic Japanese in about a year. However, upon completion of one year of study at this school, some students in junior high school still cannot fully understand all the words used in their classes. Staff of the Center School wish there was more time for instruction to allow students to acclimate completely, since higher levels of education will only be more difficult.

The creation of this Center School led to additional Japanese language centers aimed to help high school students who are not native Japanese speakers. One example is “Saturday Class” created in 2003 by Yoshiko Tsubouchi, a Japanese teacher at Abeno Junior High School, as a way to support children with experience living outside of Japan. Although Tsubouchi was originally a junior high school art teacher, she became a Japanese language teacher in the 1980s after seeing the distress a student from Brazil encounter when he entered her home room class. Watching him struggle inspired her to open a classroom that catered to foreign students’ every need. Tsubouchi, upon receiving permission from the school principal, started holding classes for students on Saturdays. Every Saturday, students from first to twelfth grade with roots places like China, the Philippines, and Thailand gathered at the school to study one-on-one with volunteer teachers. Eventually, word of Saturday classes spread, and in 2005, the volunteer staff began to include preparation for entrance exams in their support for these students.


Several former students attribute their ability to attend and graduate high school and get into college to the center school. Although many of the students were unable to initiate conversation in Japanese on their own or make a single friend when they first moved to Japan and started public schools, the staff at this language school was able to make all the difference. Ms. Tsubouchi believes that whether a student attends high school determines the rest of his or her life, and that passing the high school entrance exam changes students’ lives completely. In total, of the 150 students that had hopes of attending high school, every one of them was able to pass the entrance exam.

The Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare announced that as of October 2015, there were over 91,000 foreign workers in Japan, and it is predicted that children of foreign workers in Japan will continue to increase. According to MEXT records in 2014, nearly half of the nation’s cities, towns, and villages said they have at least one student with foreign citizenship needing special instruction. That totals to 37,095 students, and the study reported that 20% of them were receiving no special instruction at all. In some cases, schools are not given ample time to find ways to assist students with little Japanese language skills. In Iizuka City in Fukuoka, for example, the principal of Chikuho Elementary school was told days before the start of a new term that two students unable to speak Japanese would be attending the school. The school did not have room in its budget to adequately assist these students in their transition. The school and Chikuho Board of Education even requested special assistance from the Fukuoka Prefectural Board of Education, but no help was sent. This elementary school was forced to solve the problem within the school and with the current staff members.

Children of foreign workers are not the only ones for which special Japanese language instruction is necessary. There are even Japanese children with Japanese names and citizenship that need special instruction in Japanese. Example cases include biracial children using a language other than Japanese at home or Japanese-born children returning from living abroad because their Japanese parents were sent to another country for work.


Only time will tell how Japan and MEXT will handle social changes that greatly affect education in Japan. With the rise of many volunteer-run Japanese language classrooms, however, there is hope for uprooted children to attain an education in a language other than their mother tongue.

投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2017年1月28日土曜日

EDU-JPN: Moral Education and the Difficulties of Assessing Students

Education in Japan (Natalie Collar)

In elementary and junior high schools throughout Japan, children are given a special lesson in morals once a week. This subject, called dōtoku in Japanese, has great merit in teaching students to think about how individual actions affect others. The goal of this subject is to develop students’ abilities to see the world in a holistic way, where they recognize differences in values and points of view.

Although moral education is not yet an official subject within the curriculum and students do not receive an official grade for their participation, it will become a graded subject beginning in the 2018 school year. In preparation for this curriculum change, MEXT recently held its second forum in Tokyo to discuss the evaluation of this subject. Roughly 300 instructors and administrators participating in the meeting to speak of their experiences in evaluating students and make suggestions for official grading standards. There was also a panel discussion among three specialists who attended this meeting. They exchanged opinions about how a curriculum ought to be established.

fruit shop MIYAKE

Currently, most teachers face difficulty in uniformly evaluating their students, because moral education is a qualitative class, opposed to most other subjects, which are quantitative in nature. From the experienced teacher’s perspective, there are many legitimate concerns. Some instructors have noticed that if their feedback is too general, students don’t experience personal growth. Other teachers question how important the issue of empathy is in evaluating students, are they trying to see the value of others’ opinions? Another worry teachers have is whether students who are quietly pondering ideas expressed in class may receive a lower grade if the evaluation guidelines are made to reflect those of quantitative subjects. Suggestions of written activities were made in order to give these students a chance to express their ideas and provide content for evaluation. 

Although teachers and school administrators all over Japan are taking great steps toward establishing acceptable evaluative guidelines, this is an ongoing, important task that will likely take more time. However, because of the information-filled society of today, there seems to be some doubt concerning the teachers’ abilities to effectively teach the content and assess students appropriately.
投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2017年1月24日火曜日

EDU-JPN: Japanese University Entrance Exams

Education in Japan (Natalie Collar)

The end of the calendar year is often thought to be a joyful season in Japan. New Year holidays are usually filled with family time, delicious food, and relaxation. While most people are optimistically thinking of what the New Year will bring, third-year high school students are in a different boat. It marks the beginning of the most difficult period in their lives: university entrance exam season. Almost as a rite of passage, exam season puts great pressure on students to perform well enough to get into a top university. 

合格祈願
Most high school students will find themselves taking a general exam, similar to the SAT or ACT that many American students take, at a testing center. This exam is held once a year, and all students throughout the nation take the exam at the same time. This year’s exam will be held on January 14th and 15th. Over the course of two days, students will be tested on a variety of subjects such as math, Japanese, English, science, and history to name a few. Once the exam is over, answers will be published in the following day’s newspaper, and students are responsible for checking their own answers; the testing centers do not provide score reports.

Immediate access to test answers is so important to students’ abilities to accurately estimate their scores that Yomiuri Newspaper has created a webpage dedicated solely to providing the most up-to-date information concerning this process. The webpage will provide answers and explanations on the evening the final exam. Looking over the correct answers so soon after the exam will give students a very good idea of their overall score. Knowing one’s total score is important when deciding on which university to apply to, because most universities have a range of acceptable scores. Upon grading their exams, students can assess their performance with the universities of their choice and decide whether they ought to apply or not. Application deadlines for most public universities are usually about a week after the exams, so students have ample time to make their decision. 

What is especially unique about this process is that there is only one chance per year for students to take the general exam. If they fail to attain a score high enough to apply to the university of their choice, they have two options. These students can either change their mind and apply to a less prestigious school, or they can become a “rōnin” for a year and dedicate their lives to earning a higher score on the next year’s exam. The latter option is a significant financial burden for the students’ parents, so it goes without saying that all involved parties would prefer students study hard and receive a sufficiently high score on their first try.

This process is the most basic of those students face during exam season. In some cases, there are second exams and even interviews that are required. For students applying to very prestigious schools, there is often a specific exam given by the university. These exams are usually much more difficult than the general exam. As one can imagine, this is a long and arduous process for students and their supporters, so having the correct information, studying hard, and planning ahead are essential to success. With these ingredients and a bit of luck, most students accomplish their dreams of getting into a good school and the next part of their future begins.
投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2017年1月14日土曜日

EDU-JPN: Asbestos Problems in Japanese Schools

Education in Japan (Natalie Collar)

In November of 2016, it was announced that many Sapporo-area elementary and junior high schools contained asbestos in their insulation materials. This caused a suspension of school lunches in thirty schools for a couple weeks.

Holley High SchoolThe Board of Education in Sapporo examined each school and determined whether the asbestos found presents major dangers to the students and staff. Upon verification that the asbestos was harmless, many of the schools were permitted to return to normal daily activities within a week or two of the initial asbestos discovery, and school lunch was reinstated. However, almost half were left with little idea of how they would furnish school lunch in the near future.

Less than a month later, nearly seventy additional schools in Sapporo were found to have asbestos appearing in its walls and stovepipes. This news was announced just as students were dismissed for the winter holidays, but there was no mention as to how the situation will affect the normal operations of schools. While the results of the rest of the city’s schools are yet to be announced, the city says that it will set out to repair all chimneys containing asbestos over the new few years.

Hokkaido is not the only region in Japan experiencing asbestos outbreaks. Nearly 1,500 kilometers away in Osaka, Kanaoka high school was discovered to have over 100 places with traces of asbestos. The school closed off areas containing blue asbestos, a more hazardous form if inhaled in large amounts. Because these findings also occurred just before the winter break, these areas in the school are able to be properly cleaned and restored before students return.

Although these detections of asbestos are likely to be handled promptly, the sudden increase in affected schools creates some questions concerning its impact on students’ education in the near future.

投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:

2017年1月7日土曜日

EDU-JPN: How will English Education Change in Anticipation of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics?

Education in Japan (Natalie Collar)
Although students in Japan begin learning English while they are in elementary school and continue studying it through high school and often college, fluent Japanese speakers of English make up less than ten percent of the country’s population. Anyone who has visited Japan knows that national interest in English is high, but the inability of Japanese to converse in English is somewhat surprising. Taking note of this inconsistency, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has conducted a series of meetings and hearings to devise a plan to improve the linguistic abilities of its citizens. In fact, Minister of MEXT, Hirokazu Matsuno, recently announced plans for a completely revamped curriculum that will begin in 2020.

Tokyo Olympics 2020  

In hopes of Japan being recognized as the most innovative nation when it hosts the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, MEXT has laid out various suggestions for educational reform. The major theme, across all subjects, is an “active learning” approach. This technique would involve less of the traditional one-way communication model of education, in which the teacher sends information and students receive it with little interaction. Instead, the recommended approach would require teachers to make sure students possess an awareness of essential information and knowledge in each subject. Through experiments and observations, the Ministry is seeking an education that will result in well-rounded and fulfilled experience for students. The specific details about how such an environment will be created and how the curriculum will be changed are expected to be further discussed in the upcoming school year.
As far as English education is concerned, MEXT announced a few major changes. The most striking one is the inclusion of speaking and writing segments on university entrance examinations beginning in 2020. Although 2020 is just three years away, changes to high school curriculums will be put in place to improve students’ speaking and writing abilities starting in the fiscal year of 2022. This leaves some questions as to how MEXT expects high school students to perform at a higher level on entrance exams given the same expectations of the current curriculum.
In addition, MEXT also recommends the inclusion of English language activities in the curriculum for third and fourth grade students in elementary school and that English be a regular subject for fifth and sixth grade students. MEXT also announced that it would like to see additional subjects added to the curriculums of all three school levels, including various history classes and civilian studies. Given these suggested changes, many schools and teachers are wondering how they ought to change their classes to meet the guidelines. Nonetheless, this preliminary announcement from MEXT is just that, and there are many specific details to be settled later in the coming fiscal years. School dministrators, teachers, students, and parents will likely take an interest in the coming announcements as such big changes will affect them greatly.
This is not the first announcement by MEXT regarding curriculum changes. One school in Toyama Prefecture is being recognized for its curriculum and pedagogical changes made at the beginning of this school year based on previous statements by MEXT supporting curriculum reform. Katayama Gakuen middle and high school Principal Mochizuki explains the changes his school has made in its educational techniques, highlighting the ways in which the teachers use an “active learning” approach in all subjects of every grade. Like many schools in Japan, English language classes are taught jointly by a Japanese speaker of English and native speaker of English. Great efforts are being put toward establishing an English speech contest, so that students can express their own opinions and experiences in a second language. In addition to pedagogical changes made in the classroom, the school is creating opportunities for students to apply the information from classrooms in extracurricular activities. During the annual school trip, some students were seen initiating conversation with strangers in English and introducing them to Japanese culture, cuisine, and famous places.
Katayama Gakuen has also incorporated the use of a reflection sheet, in which students evaluate their individual performance and understanding of the material after each class. Principal Mochizuki believes that, through this activity, students have changed their attitudes in class because they are able to understand what they have accomplished after each class. He also believes that the overall atmosphere of the school has lightened, and many students and teaching are enjoying school life more because of these changes.
Based on MEXT’s continued announcements, it is clear that curriculum change is on the horizon in anticipation of the publicity brought on by the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. Only time will tell if MEXT can create curriculum guidelines that allow teachers and students to live up to its expectations.
投稿者 時刻: 0 件のコメント:
ラベル:
登録: 投稿 (Atom)