As New Zealand newspapers publish the list of the top academic achievers at high school, it is obvious that the Asian kids are generously represented. There are not too many Japanese names among them, but that is because the top Japanese kids are more likely to stay at home than their Korean or Chinese counterparts.
All over East Asia there is a passionate acceptance by all families that educational achievement is a key to success in life. This attitude pervades all social classes and contrasts particularly with the feeling of some English, working-class parents that educational aspirations are a kind of betrayal of one’s class and family.
I was amazed by the sacrifices that Japanese working class parents will make for the sake of their kids’ education.
In Japan, unlike New Zealand, free public education ends, not at the end of high school, but with graduation from middle school at the age of fifteen or sixteen. Entrance to a public high school is competitive. Only a small proportion (perhaps 20 or 30 per cent) of children will get into a low-fee public school. The rest must go to a private school paying up to $10,000 (NZ) a year.
Most of the kids who get into public schools come from middle class families, with the ironic result that the wealthiest families get their kids into the élite but cheap public schools, while working class families have to pay large amounts of money to go to even inferior private schools.
I have never heard any Japanese person express anger at this apparent inequity. Apart from the obvious advantage of having university-educated parents, middle-class children have another advantage in the competition to get into a public high school--money. Although most kids go to cross-class, almost free, public elementary and middle schools, money gives middle class parents an advantage when it comes to the after-school “juuku” [cram schools], which are a vital component of the preparation for the entrance exams for high school and university.
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