Japanisation of Schools?

Abstract

Mike Howarth is a practising headteacher with a keen interest in Japanese education. But readers of this book should not expect a detailed description of Japanese teaching methods or the curriculum in Japanese schools. It is rather an attempt to describe how education can contribute to economic output. Howarth seems to have been motivated to undertake this comparative study of Japanese education through his contact with a number of Japanese factories operating in Wales, and so his purpose is to examine recent educational reforms in England and Wales to determine whether they are aimed in the right direction or not, using Japan as comparator, with the right direction here meaning whether the change will contribute to Britain's economic progress. The author begins by describing the factors which have conspired to effect Britain's economic decline, as the background to present educational change; he then examines the statistical differences in educational standards between the two countries. He attributes the differences more to the so-called 'learning culture' prevalent in Japan, which British education has so far failed to foster. The current reforms are criticised for not dealing with this demand. The current examination system, the National Curriculum and vocational provision are examined in the next four chapters. Lastly, he argues that this 'learning culture' nurtured by a more comprehensive educational system will change the attitudes of the British people and eventually enable British companies to take advantage of the Japanese management methods which he praises so intensely. In a way this is exactly the same kind of interest which has inspired American comparative studies of Japanese education. As Cummings (1989) recently wrote, the perception of the strength of Japanese education has 'piggy backed' on that of the challenge of Japanese economic competitiveness (Comparative Education, 25(3) (sic, pp. 293-302). It is not my intention to argue that this interest is unjustified, but it is sometimes important to be aware of the fact that the comparison of two countries and putative application of one successful method in one country to another do not always work, as a result of other factors which are equally important. This is especially so when one tries to assess one's own country's education system, using another country's system as a model. While admitting that education and training are not the only contributor to Britain's economic failure, the author nevertheless takes the relation between education, training and economic progress for granted. He justifies this by saying that there has been a marked shift in employment from low-skill to high-skill and low knowledge to high knowledge, exemplified by information technology and its applications. British firms