Lessons from Japan’s higher education system

By Nathan Heller. From the post-World War 2 era until the late eighties, Japan stood unrivaled as the premier electronics and automobile exporter in the world. From Sony to Toyota, the quality and reliability of Japanese products set a standard to which many western manufacturers still aspire.
The success of these Japanese products are owed in part to the uncompromising nature of their creators. Both in work and in life, the Japanese value repetition, and it is this repetition that fuels their success. Consistency leads to mastery. This philosophy of constant refinement does not seem to spill over into other areas of Japanese life, however. Historically, higher education has been a closed system in Japan; high school students spend the majority of their waking hours cramming for the infamous entrance exam--an arbitrary test of cognitive ability. Once accepted into a college or university, the student gets on the career fast track, majoring most often in business or engineering.. More...