News – projectGENIUS

The Overworked Japanese Teacher

mercylovepity — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 01:07:47 +0000

It is with regularity that news articles appear that discuss the issue of the overworked Japanese school teacher. An article in The Asahi Shimbun reveals that Japanese teachers have the worst ratio across the OECD of hours spent at work to hours spent actually teaching. A article in The Yomiuri Shimbun explains that a special committee of the Central Council for Education is urgently exploring ways to improve the lot of Japanese teachers through various measures such as unencumbering teachers of certain clerical and extracurricular duties. A Japan Today article worryingly claims that Teaching in Japan is becoming a ‘Black Occupation’, which is a term loosely applied to companies that overwork their employees to such an extent that the job, though not inherently dangerous, may result in severe health issues or even death. Clearly, the work load of teachers in Japan is unsustainable and pragmatic measures need to be taken to ensure that schools are able to provide their students a quality education.

Japan’s education system – more (and more equitable) bang for its buck

mercylovepity — Wed, 13 Sep 2017 03:12:00 +0000

Japan has been able to create a more equitable learning environment for children across economic backgrounds despite Japan spending less money on schools than the OECD average. How the Japanese national and local governments allocate resources has a positive net effect on education. A very interesting article on this can be found HERE. The model is one that other countries should consider looking at. Though, admittedly, the article does gloss over somewhat the significant positive effect of Japanese teachers working long (often unpaid) overtime hours for the sake of their students – and also of their careers.

Robots Passing University Entrance Exams

mercylovepity — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 08:20:39 +0000

The artificial intelligence of a robot developed at one of Japan’s most prestigious universities – Tokyo University – was good enough to best 80% of students taking the same test. While the robot’s results wouldn’t have got it accepted into Tokyo University, who have the bar to entry set particularly high, the results would have been adequate to gain entry into many Japanese universities were the robot actually a living, breathing human. See HERE for more on the near-future potential of robots to better us in the art of passing a test.

Happy Birthday JET

mercylovepity — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 04:20:12 +0000

Probably half the expats I know here in Japan were JETS early in their formative teaching years. The Japan English and Teaching Program (JET) turned 30 years old earlier this month, serving as a conduit for Japanese culture, as well as fostering language education throughout schools and government organizations the length and breadth of Japan. With the Olympics on the horizon, there has been a resurgence in the the JET program. This article HERE gives a nice summary on the history and relevance of JET over the past three decades.

University Exam Revisions: Implications for English Teaching

mercylovepity — Mon, 21 Aug 2017 02:18:08 +0000

The Japan Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has announced reforms to the means of admission into Japan’s public and private universities. This includes revising its own entrance exam format as well as creating a more transparent and thorough recommendation and selection pathway for students to enter university based on high school performance rather than through the exam system. MEXT is also recommending that any entrance exam (its own and those implemented by private universities themselves) be expanded to include short answer questions in addition to the multiple choice format that almost exclusively make up current entrance exams. Some educators, too, are asking for an English-speaking component to be included in examinations.

These changes are sure to have implications in the teaching of English at the high school level, where we may see a real demand for (rather than a cursory application of) a more communicative model of English teaching rather than having L1 English teachers simply adding padding to what is essentially teaching test-focused English.

For more details, read this Japan Times article.

Report: Japan – Education at a Glance

Jason Ropitini — Wed, 19 Oct 2016 06:19:52 +0000

A 2016 OECD report on the state of education in Japan (embedded below) makes for interesting reading.

The report presents some interesting data points, the most salient of which are listed below. Although not specific to English language education, the findings have implications on the shape of various English language programs that schools design and implement in their (and the government’s) desire to improve the effectiveness of English language teaching and learning at primary and secondary schools nationwide.

The Positives

Both private and public expenditure per student has increased.
Access to all levels of education is high compared to other OECD nations.

The not-so Positives

Classes in primary and secondary schools are overly large.
Teacher working time is significantly above the OECD average…
…although pre-tertiary level teachers are required to spend a lot of time at school compared to teachers from other OECD nations, actual teaching time is significantly less than at other OECD nation schools.
Compared to other OECD nations, women teachers are significantly under-represented from primary school upward.
Contrary to the OECD trend, men are more likely to move on to higher levels of tertiary education than women are.
When men & women of equivalent educational qualifications are compared, a huge disparity in salaries is evident, in favour of men.

Other Interesting Points:

INEXPENSIVE Early childhood education in Japan is one of the least expensive among OECD nations.
EXPENSIVE Tertiary education tuition fees are among the highest in the OECD.
PRIVATE EXPENDITURE Japan – along with South Korea – have the highest level of tertiary-level private expenditure among OECD nations).
GDP Japan commits a relatively low proportion of its GDP to education, particularly when looking at pre-primary and post-secondary domains.
GETTING PAID Although salaries for primary- and secondary school teachers have actually declined, salaries are still above the OECD average.

In response, Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) have formulated recommendations to address several of the issues that the OECD document expresses, which I will look at in a follow-up post.

1. Japan Times ST

NEWS: Japan’s Virtual Reality High School

Jason Ropitini — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 04:28:05 +0000

In Japan, N High School is well into it’s first academic year as the first virtual reality learning institute that has full accreditation from the Government’s education ministry. The first intake of freshman numbered close to 1,500 students ranging in age from 15 to almost 90, all looking to acquire their high school certificates. While the students are located all over the Japan, the main – physical – campus is located in Okinawa prefecture far south of the main Japanese islands. The principal of N High School Hirokazu Okuhira told The Japan Times:

“It’s a new proposal to (challenge) the conventional high school education system….Rather than teaching what they know, a teacher’s role today should be to act as a coordinator who instructs students on how to search websites and compile information into something they can express by themselves”

Though for all intents and purposes, N High School is a correspondence school, it is offering a level of interactivity that should offer up interesting questions on the possible affective and educational benefits of the uniquely immersive experience of virtual reality.

Going forward, as the various requisite technologies mature, it will be interesting to see which reality variant – virtual, augmented, or mixed – will best serve the needs of dispersed learning communities worldwide.

Nobuo Kawakami (left), chairman of IT and media company Dwango Co., and Tatsuo Sato, chairman of publishing house Kadokawa Corp., introduce the correspondence N High School at a news conference held in October at event space Nicofarre in Tokyo’s Roppongi district. | SHUSUKE MURAI

Japan’s universities & the need for change

Jason Ropitini — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 02:52:54 +0000

According to a recent article, many Japanese universities are fast approaching a time where there will not be enough local students to keep their doors open. The next couple of years, then, are crucial in determining how many of Japan’s nearly 800 universities will survive the well-reported changing demographic:

Japan is approaching what some are calling “the 2018 problem” — in two years, the number of college-bound 18-year-olds will hit an all-time low and continue to shrink thereafter, according to data from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Which means Japanese universities may not be able to rely much longer on a regular customer base.

[Read entire article at OXY]

In Japan, education is war

Jason Ropitini — Mon, 12 Sep 2016 01:38:33 +0000

In Japan, a kid friendly version of Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ has been a huge success for those parents looking to give their children, aged 6 and up, the educational edge.

According to a Daily Beast article,

The playground is a battlefield in Japan, and if you’re old enough to read, then you might as well learn to fight, or avoid fighting, or run away if there’s no way you can win the fight. Here, as summer vacation comes to an end, the kids are all scrambling to finish book reports. And this year for enterprising tykes—and their Tiger Moms—or Tiger Dads—there’s a Japanese translation and adaptation of the ancient Chinese strategy book, The Art of War, by Sun Tzu. It’s recommended for kids 6 years old and older…

[Continue reading at The Daily Beast]

Japanese teachers have the longest working week in the teaching world

Jason Ropitini — Thu, 08 Sep 2016 08:16:31 +0000

The Longest Working Hours in the World

Japan’s teachers are overworked. They toil away at school from early morning until late at night, and many go in on weekends too, preventing them from getting a proper rest before Monday comes round again.

In the 2013 Teaching and Learning International Survey, conducted in 34 countries and regions by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, researchers found that Japanese teachers had the longest working hours.

This was not due to the amount of time spent teaching. In fact, class time in Japan was below the survey average. The long hours result from various other duties, including meetings and lesson preparation. Most striking of all is how much longer teachers in Japan dedicate to extracurricular activities […continue reading]