Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > Japanese Government Policies in Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology 2001 >Chapter8 Section1.3

Various countries are promoting educational reform against a common background and when one views the policy of educational reform within each nation's overall agenda common characteristics, like Japan's Educational Reform as a National Strategy, emerge. One can call this the major characteristic of today's educational reform movements.

  There is a growing recognition that when countries are exposed to global economic competition and try to win that competition, the determinant factors are not only capital and production/distribution systems, but also advanced knowledge and skills as well as the quality and quantity of human resources that can generate and utilize that knowledge and skill-in other words, the recognition that a "knowledge-based society" is the age of the competition of human resources development. Based on such recognition, the orientation toward educational reform as the strategic policy for socio-economic development was already evident in various countries with the beginning of educational reform in the 1980s. The U.S. and U.K. have promoted improving the quality of education and raising the standards as a means to strengthen international competitiveness, while France has integrated educational reform into its policies for "the development of the country based on science and technology" and China has been using the slogan "Invigorating China through Science and Education." Japan is also calling for educational reform as the "foundation of all social systems" as the country enters the 21^st century.

  As discussed above, educational reform is given very high priority on the national agenda of various countries and its promotion is attracting wide support from not only the business community but also the general population.

To which direction, then, are various countries trying to lead educational reform, which they have placed high on their agenda? Although the directions may vary according to each country's history, tradition and systems of education, in general the following can be pointed out.

  The first direction is toward improving the academic performance of students. This is very clear in the case of the U.S. and the U.K., where educational reform was conceived as a reaction to the sense of crises regarding students' performance in the basics. France also has made this its prime objective. In order to achieve this objective, the U.S. and the U.K. have made educational standards (U.S)/national curriculum (U.K.) while putting an emphasis on the creativity and originality of schools by allowing them to exercise greater autonomy, and at the same time holding them accountable to what improvement of students' performance has been attained. France is moving toward allowing various educational styles adapted to the needs of children, while China, the Republic of Korea and Singapore are also making the curriculum more diverse from the viewpoint of putting more importance on the development of creativity. Japan, too, is diversifying the curriculum in an effort to foster each child's personality and to develop a "zest for living." This is being done on the basis of enforcing the learning of basics and rigorous selection of content to be taught.

  Thus, while sharing the common objective of the improvement of students' performance, a marked difference of direction exists-one toward standardization and the other toward diversification of the curriculum. However, this is due to the fact that the original starting points were different, with the U.S. and the U.K. having been over-diversified and Asian countries, including Japan, over-standardized. It can be said that all countries are moving toward the same goal, that of making a foundation with solidly acquired basics and individual personality and creativity on top of it.

  In addition, there is a new view on scholastic ability, which sees this ability not only in terms of literacy and numeracy but as the ability to solve problems, to think, and to create based upon these skills. This new perspective has appeared in Japan as well as an OECD study on "life skills" and "cross-curricular competency," China's idea of "Quality-oriented Education" and Singapore's "Thinking School, Learning Nation" slogan.

  The second direction is toward the development of sociability. Today, when violence by children is becoming a significant problem in many countries, there is a growing attitude in each country to deal squarely with this problem as a part of school education. The U.S., U.K. and France are trying to form a sense of order and morality - essential qualities for the constituents of society - through civics education and education through volunteer activities. With Japan trying to develop rich humanity through "emotional education" and China and the Republic of Korea emphasizing moral education, a common orientation is apparent.

  The third direction is the expansion of the scale of higher education and the maintenance/improvement of its quality. As the proportion of students who go on to receive higher education is growing significantly and approaching the 50% mark, countries are about to enter an age of "popularization and universalization" of higher education. It is, therefore, an extremely pressing issue for each country to determine who will pay the cost of this expanded higher education and how to maintain and improve the quality of education and study, now that ever increasing intellectual contributions are being sought toward the development of society and the economy.

  The fourth direction is toward the construction of a lifelong learning society. Nowadays, the idea of lifelong learning, stipulating that one's education and learning should not end with school education received during his or her youth but continued throughout life, is shared among nations. The U.K. and the Republic of Korea, like Japan, have also clearly established a policy toward the realization of a lifelong learning society. Other countries are working on this agenda, too, but there is a slight difference in policy between Western countries that put an emphasis on vocational education and training after compulsory education, and Japan that views lifelong learning as including a wider range of subjects such as hobbies and fine culture. Still, all countries are actively engaged in trying to make IT a part of lifelong learning in order to make more opportunities available in a more flexible manner.