From the Yomuiri Shimbun: Panel says cram-free education a failure.

     Cram-free education, a main plank of current teaching guidelines, is expected to be declared a failure in an report interim to be released shortly, it has been learned.

     The report, which will be released by the Central Council for Education, an advisory panel to the education, science and technology minister, is the first to publicly admit that cram-free education had failed to achieve the intended results.

     The council has already decided to advise the minister to increase school hours at primary and middle schools.

     Among its main points, the report will say that the cram-free policy led to an excessive reduction in school hours.

     Such self-criticism is a rare move, but the council is believed to have concluded that it is necessary to win teachers' understanding for the policy reversal.

     In 1996, the council proposed encouraging children to develop a "zest for living," including the development of self-expression and care for others.

     As a result, the current official curriculum guidelines aim to increase the effectiveness of teaching by focusing on a narrower range of subject material. The content of primary and middle schools' subjects was reduced by 30 percent, while school hours were cut by 10 percent.

     The Japanese educational system is, from all that I can gather a complete, well fiasco for lack of a better word.  Criticism of it is not exactly thin on the ground and from what I have read this seems to be step backwards.  Why should the central gov't in a nation of 150+ million people be setting the curriculum for every school from Kushiro to Naha?  What Japan desperately needs is decentralization and a reduction in governmental involvement in most aspects of daily life and business.  People tend to excell when government simply gets out of their way and lets them live up to their full potential.  Thats my opinion anyway.

Posted by: raging tachikoma at 07:42 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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