A Japanese educational institution seems to be establishing itself in Utah. The name is different from the Japanese model, but the message and goal are the same. These schools provide extra instruction so kids can succeed in the regular school system.
In Japan the juku is a private school that supplements the public system. It is an after-school school or summer school that offers what could loosely be termed cram courses designed to pick up where the public schools are not succeeding. The goal of most parents who place students in juku is to ensure success in the public system with extra help.Critics of U.S. education often point to the Japanese system as a model of success. Perhaps the point is missed in contrasting the two systems. Perhaps the real difference is in the commitment to education made by the parents who are willing to pay for extra private schooling.
The differences in the system are striking. The estimate is that Japan is spending 6 percent of its GNP on education and that the United States is spending 7 percent. The point is easy to make that Japan is getting more for its money or that the U.S. system is inefficient.
In Japan 63 percent of 4-year-olds attend school. In the U.S. 32 percent of these children have started school. Japan graduates 90 percent of its students from 12th grade. A recent estimate puts the U.S. graduation rate at 77 percent.
Most are aware that the school year and school day are both longer in Japan. What this means is that by high school graduation, Japanese students have been in school about three or four years longer than American students.
Considerably more work is required of students in Japan than of students in the United States. Japanese students average two hours of homework each day during high school. The U.S. estimate for high school students is 30 minutes per day of homework.
These differences in the two systems may not be the differences that count. It may be the difference that counts is a quality that causes a parent to invest in extra schooling or juku. In Tokyo and other large Japanese cities, it is estimated that two-thirds of all seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-grade students are attending juku or being tutored at home.
The juku has become a growth industry in Japan with franchising and educational conglomerates. There are juku for the slower students, for the average and for the bright. Part of the reason for this is that the public schools generally have no programs for gifted students and generally offer no individually paced learning.
Another reason for the juku is that admission to the top high schools is as competitive as admission to the universities.
Students do not simply attend the neighborhood high school. They apply for admission, and of course the motivated want to attend the high schools with the best university placement records.
Some juku provide a couple hours of instruction a few days each week, but others take a very rigorous approach. They often meet every night and some meet on weekends and holidays.
In addition, parents in Japan often request juku that are school lessons to supplement schoolwork. Juku are often extended summer assignments or extra assignments to be done in the evening.
Students preparing for university entrance in Japan may attend yobiko. This is a private coaching school to help students do well on examinations and gain university entrance. These again are supplementary to the regular system and paid for by parents.
Another view of the Japanese system may be that the public system is not as good as we sometimes assume. Its weakness may be the cause of the large private investment in juku and yobiko.
If one subscribes to this view then the difference between education in Japan and the U.S. is not in the systems but in the willingness of parents to purchase supplementary education and tutor at home.