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Frequent short tests are given at the elementary school level to provide periodic checks of student mastery and retention of material. For example, tests on Chinese characters are customarily given monthly to Japanese students. During the summer, winter, and spring vacations, homework assignments are given to students to ensure that they will not forget the material covered before their vacation, to preserve the flow of material into the period after the vacation, and to help maintain positive study habits. Evaluation of homework may count as part of the term grade, which is given on a 3-point scale. Elementary schools may also give term tests, but decisions about testing are handled by each school.
A marked change in the practice of testing within schools occurs at the junior high school level. The curriculum and testing practices in junior high school are geared toward preparing students for the high school entrance examinations. Consequently, longer and more comprehensive tests are evident at this level. Midterm and final examinations are typically given each term, and comprehensive tests are given after long vacations to all students within a grade. These tests normally include multiple-choice and short essay questions, as well as ones that require long answers.
The use of the tests becomes increasingly constrained by the demands of the high school entrance examination as students approach the ninth grade. In the first year of junior high school, grades are used primarily to rank students within a grade. By the third year, test scores are used to ascertain the level of high school to which students should apply.
At the high school level, it is necessary to examine separately the situations of elite academic high schools, ordinary academic high schools, and vocational high schools. At elite academic high schools, students are accepted by elite universities on the basis of competitive scores on the university entrance examinations. Consequently, mock university entrance examinations (mogi shiken) are frequently used by these schools to assess student performance, and the results are used to guide students in improving their scores. Since the prestige of elite academic high schools is dependent on the proportion of their students who gain acceptance into prestigious universities, tests at these schools are frequently constructed solely to help students improve their scores.
At many ordinary academic high schools, a sizable proportion of students are not college bound, and among those who are, many are not seeking entrance into prestigious universities (Tsukada 1988). Therefore, in contrast to elite academic high schools, ordinary academic high schools are not under pressure to prepare students exclusively for university entrance examinations by giving frequent mock examinations.
In contrast to academic high school students, most vocational high school students do not advance to universities. Among those who do advance, many of them do so through special arrangements that their schools have with universities, which permit these students to enter on the basis of letters of recommendation in lieu of entrance examinations. As for nonacademic standards, minimum vocational training requirements are outlined by the Japanese Ministry of Education (Dore and Sako 1989). However, some efforts are made to accommodate the vocational high school students. For example, a test in accounting may replace that in mathematics, and tests in other alternative subjects may also be available. Because vocational high schools' goal has not focused on preparing students to enter a university, their curriculum places the students at a disadvantage for entering universities. The content of courses in vocational high schools is easier than that of regular high schools, especially in core subjects such as mathematics, language arts, English, and science.
The major tests given to Japanese students outside of school are the high school entrance examination (koko nyugaku shiken) and the university entrance examinations (senta shiken and daigaku nyugaku shiken). Since elementary and junior high school are compulsory, students automatically advance from elementary to local public junior high school without taking entrance examinations. However, students who are seeking entrance into national elementary and junior high schools and into prestigious private elementary and junior high schools need to take entrance examinations (White 1987). The percentages of students entering these schools, however, is small.
At the end of mandatory education, in the ninth grade, Japanese students who wish to continue their education in public schools need to take high school entrance examinations administered by the appropriate governing authority such as the prefecture or municipality. Or, if seeking to attend national or private high schools, students must take examinations that are administered by the schools themselves.
Students typically are tested in five subject areas: Japanese language (kokugo), mathematics (sugaku), social studies (shakai), science (rika), and foreign language, usually English. The entrance examination in each of the subjects is 50 minutes long, for a total of 6 hours including a 1-hour lunch period. Because the school year begins in April, high school entrance examinations are given in either February or March. Results are announced a week later.
In addition to preparing for the test by taking the mock entrance examination, students may also receive help from home tutors (kateikyoshi) or juku instructors. A number of private companies publish high school entrance examination manuals, available at bookstores throughout Japan. One such manual published by Koe no Kyoikusha provides the previous 5 years' Tokyo Metropolitan High School Entrance Examinations, complete with answers and explanations. The average test scores, presented in the form of standard (z) scores of students accepted (hensachi) to Tokyo Metropolitan high schools are listed, along with the number of available openings and of applicants during the previous year. In addition, pointers are given to students to help them improve scores, such as getting enough sleep and eating well before the examination.
When describing educational standards in Japan, one must consider both the uniform curriculum that Monbusho requires of public, national, and private schools and the mastery of the curriculum necessary for individual students to gain entrance to selective Japanese universities. Monbusho has maintained control over the content of the university entrance examinations by reviewing questions to ensure that there is no deviation from the prescribed curricular content. However, in order to ensure selection of what are believed to be the best applicants, the university entrance examinations are highly competitive, and some questions require students to synthesize divergent material. Consequently, to do well on the examinations, students must often finish material early and spend considerable time on review and practice problems.
The format of the examinations, constructed and administered by each university, varies to some extent across universities, but typically includes multiple-choice, short answer, and long essay questions. For mathematics and science questions, the answers as well as the work leading to them are assessed.
In order for the applicants to perform successfully on university entrance examinations, especially for entrance into the more prestigious schools, schoolteachers often feel it is necessary to prepare students for the examinations at a level far above the level that may be expected by Monbusho. Model questions used for this purpose in classes usually demand a deep understanding of the material and sophisticated problem-solving techniques. As a result, many problems on the university entrance examination are of such a level of difficulty that students must draw on a vast reserve of knowledge in order to produce the correct answers. Juku and other supplementary educational institutions play an important role in bringing about ever-escalating competitive levels and hence in raising standards. Indeed, their influence has grown to such a degree that one cannot discuss the chances of getting into top universities without referring to the influence of outside tutoring.
The current ethos among middle-class Japanese is that to enter prestigious universities, individuals must attend highly ranked high schools. And to gain entrance to highly ranked high schools, students must prepare themselves from junior high school years or even earlier. Thus, the academic standards held by ambitious individuals or parents of younger students are no longer set by the Monbusho curricula, according to some critics, but by the difficulty of college entrance examinations and the level of secondary school education needed to prepare for those examinations. In large part because of the competitiveness of entrance examinations, students who aim for highly ranked universities feel that they must supplement their education in other ways, such as by attending juku or yobiko, or through correspondence courses, summer programs, or practice sessions with examples of college entrance examinations. Because of the critical role of the examinations, any change in the orientation of questions on the examination requires a corresponding modification of classroom teaching. Many critics complain that instruction in high school is overly influenced by the university entrance examinations.
Although the content of entrance examinations should not deviate from the standard Monbusho curricula, constructing examination questions for the same subject area over many years makes it difficult to design new questions. This difficulty is relieved somewhat by Monbusho's revision of the Course of Study every 10 years, ensuring that the curriculum responds to societal changes and contemporary educational needs.
To enter college, students must be at least 18 years old and have completed high school or an equivalent level of education, determined by taking the annually administered University Entrance Qualification Test (Daiken, or Daigaku Nyugaku Shikaku Kentei), which covers the high school curriculum. All students seeking admission to national or public universities are required to take the Center Examination (Senta Shiken), administered by the National Center for University Entrance Examination (Daigaku Nyushi Senta) in January, and the entrance examinations for the universities they want to attend.
Center examination. The Center Examination normally tests applicants to national and public universities in six areas—mathematics, science, history, language arts, humanities, and foreign language—although some private universities may require only three or four of these subjects. All questions on the annual Center Examinations are multiple choice; answers are published in newspapers the following day so that students may ascertain their performance level, which, in turn, determines the level of universities to which they should apply. Some highly competitive universities will not consider students who score below certain cutoff points.
University examinations. After the Center Examination, students must apply to and take entrance examinations administered by the universities themselves. These examinations are called second-stage examinations (dainiji shiken). These university-specific examinations normally involve multiple-choice, short answer, and long essay questions. For selected subjects, oral examinations or interviews may be given in lieu of testing in other formats. Students are allowed more than one chance to try for admittance to universities.
The system for admission to national universities is extremely complicated. Indeed, even faculty members at these universities may find the procedures difficult to understand. In one system, universities are allotted one, and only one, of three examination days. Therefore, all students seeking entrance to a particular university must take the examination on the same day. Students are thereby prevented from taking examinations for other universities scheduled on that same day.
In the second system, universities or departments have two separate examination days, one early (A schedule) and one late (B schedule). Students may therefore take the examination for two of the national universities. However, the system is even more complex in that students may even find it possible to take more than one examination during each of the designated examination periods. A set number of students—typically 80 percent for the first examinations and 20 percent for the second examination period—are accepted into universities during each of the examination periods. Students who are accepted to a university during the first examination period are not allowed to take the second examination of any other university unless they forfeit their acceptance. During the second examination period, those who have not yet been accepted by a university have another chance of acceptance through the Center Examination, a thesis, interviews, or by taking tests in fewer subjects.
Relative importance of examinations scores in admittance decisions. Student scores on the objective examinations are weighted heavily in admissions decisions by Japanese universities. A weighted average of the Center Examination and Second-Stage Examinations scores is the primary criterion in student eligibility for admission. For admissions to Japanese public universities, little weight, if any, is given to high school class ranking, high school absenteeism and tardiness, and extracurricular activities such as athletics. Some private universities, however, may place some weight on these factors in their decisions about admitting a student.
Parental involvement in preparing for entrance examinations. Parental awareness of the procedures to enter college is a critical component of college entrance. White (1987) cites numerous anecdotes illustrating the extent of parental awareness and involvement in the process to enter college. One extreme case is that of a father who dressed as an 18-year-old girl in order to take the entrance examination for his daughter.
According to White, the involvement of mothers is critical, and their involvement in children's early cognitive development is a conscious strategy to improve their children's chances in competitive examinations later in life (White 1987). A recent study reiterates the importance of mothers in motivating students for university entrance; however, the same study found that mothers are less involved than teachers with the necessary procedures (Fuchigami 1986). It may well be that the procedures of entering universities are so salient to students through the mass media, teachers, and, especially, peers, that parental involvement in the actual procedures to enter college may not be critical.
Japanese students may also enter college through one of two recommendation systems. The first system (shiteiko suisen) involves special quotas for applicants from schools that are highly ranked academically. In the shiteiko suisen system, academically elite high schools are able to recommend a small number of students on the basis of academic standing, personality, conduct, attendance, extracurricular activities, and leadership. This system may be helpful for those students who have studied diligently throughout high school, but may not perform well in competitive testing situations because of test anxiety.
The second type of system (kobo suisen) allows students from any high school to seek recommendations from high school teachers. Applicants seeking admission through this system need considerable individual initiative to seek out the universities that have a kobo suisen system. Students must then approach high school teachers for letters of recommendation.
It is not clear to what extent the recommendation system is utilized in Japan. The recommendation system is a way of assuring that responsible, diligent students have an opportunity to enter universities that fit their level of ability, regardless of their score on entrance examinations. Private universities are more likely to accept students through the recommendation system. By some estimates, about 20 percent of students are admitted to college on the basis of the recommendation system.
Overall, Japanese teachers have mixed feelings about the current university entrance examination system. In a recent study, teachers agreed that students who study hard and do well on the examinations have equal chances of getting into universities. They also liked the confidentiality and the objective way that the Center Examinations are marked.
In spite of the perceived fairness of the university entrance examinations, many teachers expressed concern that the costs of supplementary educational institutions were undermining that fairness by giving students from families with economic means an unfair advantage. They also expressed reservations that luck might affect placement outcomes because of the multiple-choice format of the Center Examinations, and worried that the multiple-choice format did not test other kinds of important academic skills, such as application of knowledge to novel problems. Instead, they feared that the examinations relied too much on rote memorization and retrieval skills. Their criticisms are aimed primarily at the initial Center Examination, because this is the only examination that relies solely on the multiple-choice format. In contrast to the Center Examination, the regular university tests require students to present their work in solving mathematics problems, summarize the main points of a Japanese essay, respond orally to questions about what they have studied, or write a composition on a designated subject.
Japanese teachers also seem to have mixed feelings about the recommendation system. While teachers appreciate that the recommendation system provides a means of university entrance that is not based solely on examination scores, they also are concerned that the students this system was designed to help are not being helped, namely, those who are unable to perform at their capabilities in the pressured atmosphere of testing. Instead, many capable students are seeking recommendations as a means to have their university entrance decisions made earlier, without taking the university entrance examinations. Another major problem is that high schools differ in what they demand of students and it is difficult to evaluate the recommendations from different high schools. Furthermore, university faculty members who review the recommendations may make their decisions on a purely subjective basis in considering the students' involvement in sports, fine arts, or other domains. Subjectivity may also affect their evaluations of students' academic performance in their interviews with students or assessments of their written work. As a result, students suggested for college admission on the basis of recommendations may encounter difficulties in college because they may be at borderline levels of ability as evidenced by low scores on the Center Examination.
Teachers express a desire to see a system in which entrance to college is made somewhat easier, thus accommodating all motivated and qualified individuals. At the same time, teachers would like to see a system in which college graduation is more difficult than at present. Thus, as these teachers argue, Japanese students will be motivated to study diligently during their college years, as well.
Many Japanese students who are not admitted to their university of choice try again the following year. These students are called ronin (masterless samurai) during the interim period between examinations. In order to prepare for the following year's examinations, special preparatory schools (yobiko) provide instruction in the topics covered on the university entrance examinations. Ronin students are the main clients of yobiko. Yobiko are formal institutions and are listed by the Japanese Ministry of Education as "incorporated schools." In 1977 there were 22,000 yobiko (Tsukada 1988).
A large proportion of students entering elite universities have experienced at least 1 year as ronin. Among successful applicants to Tokyo University in 1993, 39 percent were ronin students, with the majority (33 percent of the total applicants) having experienced 1 year of ronin study (Sundai Yobigakko 1994a). During the same year, 82 percent of successful applicants to the Social Sciences Department at Waseda University, an elite private university in Tokyo, were former ronin students (Sundai Yobigako 1994b). These numbers suggest that admission to university after a period as ronin is a common way of entering elite universities in Japan.
An increasing number of Japanese students have returned from living overseas for extensive periods. These students are called kikoku shijo. In 1986 there were 10,498 kikoku shijo in Japanese schools, with over 60 percent of kikoku shijo in elementary schools (Goodman 1990). The number of kikoku shijo will probably continue to grow, although the recent recession has reduced the number of Japanese given assignments in foreign countries.
The integration or reintegration of these students into Japanese schools has been problematic, and, consequently, has attracted a considerable amount of attention in the Japanese mass media. One of the main problems facing kikoku shijo is the disadvantage these students have in the university entrance examination. Although a sizable proportion of kikoku shijo attend special Japanese schools (hoshuko) on weekends in the various host countries, the kikoku shijo often lack knowledge about Japanese geography, history, and language that a citizen may acquire simply by residing in Japan. Because kikoku shijo are at a disadvantage in the highly rigorous high school and university entrance examinations, Monbusho created reception schools (ukeireko) to accommodate the special needs of the kikoku shijo upon their return to Japan (Goodman 1990).
In addition, many elite public and private universities in Japan—such as Tokyo, Kyoto, Keio, and Waseda universities—and non-elite ones as well have created special quotas in certain departments (tokubetsu waku) for kikoku shijo. Students who seek entrance to these departments are given special entrance examinations, essays, or interviews. Statistics from 1985 show that 90 percent of kikoku shijo who entered universities did so through the tokubetsu waku system (Goodman 1990).
Opportunities for graduates of vocational high schools to attend college are quite limited. One recent study found that 20 percent of commercial and 27 percent of industrial high school students sampled wanted further schooling upon graduation. Among those desiring further schooling, only 21 percent of the commercial and 28 percent of the industrial high school students desired to enter universities. Special trade schools were the objective of just over half of vocational high school students who wanted further education (Yoshimoto and Kosugi 1989).
In spite of the limited opportunities for vocational high school graduates to advance to universities, such opportunities do exist for a small number of students. According to published statistics (Monbusho 1985, cited in Dore and Sako 1989), about 9 percent of vocational high school graduates go on to universities or junior colleges. A similar percentage go on to special training schools for 2 years. About four-fifths of vocational high school graduates enter the labor market directly after graduation.
Less than 1 percent of junior high school graduates advance to 5-year technical colleges that provide an integrated curriculum of 3 years of high school and 2 years of college-level training. Technical colleges provide more advanced practical training than that available in vocational high schools. According to the latest statistics, only 8 percent of technical college graduates enter 4-year colleges (Monbusho 1992).
National standards in education are maintained in Japan by the interaction between the administrative control of Monbusho and the fierce competition for entrance into high schools and colleges. Through strict enforcement of the Courses of Study for elementary, junior high, and high schools, Monbusho ensures that students throughout Japan are exposed to approximately the same curriculum. The fierce competition to enter high schools and colleges has ensured that aspiring students must master the curriculum thoroughly and at high levels of difficulty. This competition has presented Japanese society with the problem of reducing the extraordinary competitive pressures that the effective implementation of national standards has helped create.
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[Components of National Education Standards in Japan - References]