Japan orders universities to end education in social sciences, humanities, law
bloombergview.com
bloombergview.com
The accuracy of above statements aside, it is true that generally speaking, Japanese students study much much harder in High School than in College, because the College you get into traditionally determines much of the rest of your life. So the stereotype is that students cram to get into great schools, then party for 4 years because their grades don't matter in landing employment.
Within this general stereotype, there is a further stereotype that the students in science and engineering slave away in the labs while the humanities students have a jolly good time in the social culture group "circles".
Given the hierarchy of stereotypes above, it isn't a big surprise to me if the humanities are seen by some as "glut" that can be cut, since government is subsidizing student partying. But it's surprising since the lawmakers should predominantly be from these exact programs being cut.
However, that has meant that students flock to industries where said lifetime employment is still a rock. The #1 destination is Import-export trade companies (Mitsubishi Shouji being the top dog there), followed by ad agencies Dentsu and Hakuhodou, then super high quality industrial companies such as Toyota, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Utilities, etc.
I can confirm that it is the case. Once you get it, it's like vacation. 20 hours max of classes per week, no homework, no practicals, it's relax time and that's when they take a side job to make money since they have so much free time.
Japan's Universities level compared to how much they cost is completely laughable, The whole education is done by private companies once the new graduates enter the workforce, since they know close to nothing.
I've been at one of the largest companies in Japan as a new grad, and I agree that in some ways they pick up the slack, but their internal training systems can be pretty broken and inefficient as well.
That's because the US system is completely broken and makes it easy to borrow instead of making it easy to pay, which drives the prices upward on and on without any limit in sight, as long as you can borrow (thank the Fed for their interest rates policies!).
> their internal training systems can be pretty broken
Agree it's not perfect, but at least they learn by doing real work. I have seen new grads jump form a "zero level" to "someone I could recommend to work with" within a couple years at a company.
I do wish that HR departments in Japanese megacorps actually gave a damn about matching undergraduate backgrounds to assignments though. So much waste there.
LOL yeah !! I have seen folks who studied Biology land their first job in Sales! Seriously...
The worst I saw was a CS guy assigned to a Mech E place while a Mech E was assigned to a CS place.
Why???
When I studied philosophy here in Belgium, I attended about 10 hours of classes a week on average, and while we did have a whole bunch of papers to write every semester, overall it wasn't particularly taxing. But having a light course load allowed me to dive much more deeply into topics of interest, from the ancient sophists to the history of economics, stuff that was never going to get me better grades but that was fascinating in its own right. I also spent a lot of time at the student newspaper learning how to code, how to do print design, how to write and at the end how to manage a newsroom.
Now, more than five years later I'm back in school in an intensive statistics program, and while it's much more challenging than philosophy was, that doesn't necessarily make it better: I'm building up a huge list of "things to study after I graduate because I don't have time now" and even if I wanted to participate in e.g. the student council, I don't know where I would find the energy.
If universities are supposed to educate us to become well-rounded individuals, pushing your students to the limit so there isn't time for anything else is not necessarily such a great strategy.
I'm fully aware many people would just use any free time you give them to party. But that's part of what makes this so sad. If people never have to learn how to meaningfully organize their lives outside of school, there's a good chance they still won't know how to once they've got a job.
I just don't see how Japanese could be way more efficient than Westerners who put 50-60 hours per week (speaking from my experience) and get to the same level in the end. And there is no surprise, they don't. They clearly don't have the level to compete at the University level, both in experience as well as general knowledge.
And that's a shame, because the University should be about the subject you are the most interested to study, and therefore there should be no restraint as to how much you would be willing to learn, instead of having so few hours per week.
In the end, the cost is on society as companies waste a year or more to educate new graduates to make them into productive employees.
But searching The Japan News[1], which is Yomiuri Shimbun's English-language site, there's nothing on this. The only recent reference to Education Minister Hakuban Shimomura is about a test-cheating scandal.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/kyoiku/news/20150824-OYT8T50033.htm...
This has a scan of the paper clipping:
We're already paying the price of producing engineering-driven business and products en masse- check e.g. the Internet of Things irrelevance and lack of real known use-cases. When the boom of all-things-IT end, we will regret not being user and customer driven. And we will definitely regret ignoring the guys who know (knew?) something about being human.
It's VC money spawning this nonsense,followed by "design" (look fancy,do nothing)
I know you're being sarcastic but it sounds like paradise to me.
Czech Republic has similar system. Education is free, but number of places in public university is set by number of jobs available. We have lot of engineers and doctors, a bit less lawyers and very few artists and sociologists. As a side effect those become elite subjects with really bright students.
My misanthropic self suggests they're more likely really well-connected.
Not a fuzzy opaque admission system from UK/US where they do 'hire talks' And no grade curving nonsense
You study,you score points and you either get in or not. The only way money can help is by hiring extra tutors to prepare you for exams - but a lot of my classmates at top polish polytechnic were poor as fuck,just brilliant.
The admission system works (the unis themselves have a lot of issues though)
We don't do 'hire talks', you get in based on your grades and essentially a letter you write about yourself and your interests. The latter being important because there is more to you as a person than your UCAS points.
The times when colleges applied reason/merit to the admission process are long gone. These days they are racketeering, politically-correct, quota-driven businesses where educational excellence is less and less important.
Other "important" factors which impact your admission chances are:
- your race (Asians usually discriminated against),
- your gender (both females and males can be discriminated),
- your state of residence (quotas for local residents),
- your country of residence (overseas students typically are rich and parents pay full tuition),
- your athletic prowess in a particular sport (if you are a semi-pro, you are golden).
Harvard does not make it a secret that a significant number (30%, I think) of slots is reserved for "legacies" and athletes. The rest are very good students (who managed to impress the admissions with some unusual after school activities), who make up for the legacies/athletes.
Which, if you think about it, is exactly what a conservative government would like. It's less people able to bring legal challenges against them, and less people who might defend 'criminals'.
99% of those arrested in Japan are convicted: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/29/abandon-hop...
LOL, as if it was not already expensive as it is.
Japan has a large number of law students and not nearly enough seats as legal professionals to accommodate them. It probably isn't as bad as it looks.
In a context where Japan's conservative government seems to be contemplating future conflict with its neighbors as a more likely outcome, it would help to shield the populance from the fact that their "enemies" are human too.
Mind you, this isn't just about the Japanese conservative government, but I just can't see what purpose this could possibly ever serve.
Of course we can imagine drone wars but what's the point exactly?
It depends. After WW2, USSR seems to have recovered its numbers (until late soviet birth rate and life expectancy slow dive). Germany never actually recovered, it seems to me - their population numbers are flat for decades and they're bringing a lot of immigrants in. France, I don't know - I guess they sidestepped this issue by repatriating people fleeing from ex-colonies.
(Seriously though, I thought it was pretty clear that I was joking when I suggested war as a practical solution for falling population. Should I have used more exclamation points?)
It's not exactly a conspiracy, but it's entirely the result of the elites trying to shape the labor market.
They still see engineering as an overpaid profession (one of the last holdouts of the middle classes), which is why they're trying to push more of the younger generation into it and pull in more immigrants (see Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us, for instance).
Driving up supply will push down wages.
This is the source of all of the sneering about useless degrees in humanities too - as if it were the fault of 21 year olds that they graduated into the worst labor market since the depression.
That said, if you're prepared to pay, there is no shortage.
Hah! Japan has those students for the past 25 years and nothing great came out of it. I don't think the government should eliminate such disciplines, but trying to make it seem like they are essential to run your Economy is a very shallow promise.
Plus, I wonder what they teach in Economics in Japan apart from the government love for Stimulus, which is all what politicians in Japan seem to do no matter from which party they come from.
When will we learn that science and technology cannot solve all our problems and apply this knowledge practically? Isn't the pace of technological change already too fast for our culture to keep up with? Culture should be in the driving seat, otherwise you get technology for technology's sake (making things because we can, regardless of the plausible consequences).
Really? I enjoy some culture from Japan, but I wouldn't say they've got everything sorted. Work culture, social isolation, fear of failure, suicide, rapidly declining population all appear to be issues.
And it is in fact true that there are too many grads in those areas.
Can't fight with lack of culture by destroying culture.
Not to mention that there is a huge amount of disdain for the humanities in some hardcore engineering circles.