[M.D. Holloway]

Japan

Japan has a highly competitive examination system, but it doesn't hold educators accountable for students' scores on standardized tests. Indeed, Japan specifically excludes student achievement on these tests as a criterion for the self-evaluations that Japanese schools conduct. In Japanese public schools, elementary and lower secondary students do not take high-stakes tests nor are they assigned to schools by achievement. The examination pressures begin between lower and upper secondary school, when examination results determine the upper secondary school that students will enter. The pressures that students applying to universities face have been well publicized, as have the supplementary schools (juku) that many Japanese students attend to study for the examinations. In recent years, because of a dramatically declining population, Japanese students have not had a problem gaining admission into higher education institutions. However, competition for admission to the most prestigious universities remains severe because graduates of these universities usually fill the top jobs in government and industry. Japan, like Singapore, is attempting to increase the flexibility of the learning environment to cultivate “Japanese people with ‘rich humanity’ and ‘rich creativity’ by letting individual abilities grow” (Watanabe, 2004, p. 237). One component of this reform has been to reduce the school week from six to five days to give students more time to explore nature and participate in community-based activities. However, many families appear to be using this “free” time to increase their children's participation in juku. Although the response to Japan's reforms has generally been positive, conservative politicians and some parents are concerned about changing an education system that they believe played a major role in the country's rapid economic growth after World War II, about encouraging individualism at the expense of Japan's traditional values of cooperation and consensus, about weakening nationalism, and—perhaps most important to parents—about making any changes that might decrease their children's test scores and chances of gaining admission into prestigious universities.

China

For many centuries, the Chinese have viewed their country's examination system, which dates back to the Shui dynasty in 603 CE, as the main route out of poverty for a child from a low income family. However, like Singapore and Japan, China is attempting to reduce its reliance on rote learning. Realizing that examinations inevitably drive classroom practice, China has revised its highly competitive university entrance exams by requiring students to integrate knowledge from a wide range of fields. For example, a recent exam question on the increased number of private cars in China required students to draw on the diverse fields of statistics, comparative analysis, supply and production, urban traffic, pollution, and social studies. China's reforms in classroom and examination practices have occurred in an exceptionally short period of time. China's practice of building on traditional culture—or “holding new wine with the old bottle” (Cheng, 2004, p. 16)—appears to have contributed to its unusual success in implementing change. China's reforms, however, are not without controversy. The new teaching approaches have not reached the majority of schools in China's decentralized education system, with its increasing gaps in school quality between the country's rich and poor areas. Some Chinese are concerned that if examinations reduce their emphasis on memorization, children from poor families will be at an even greater disadvantage than before because they will be tested on skills that their schools have not taught them. Chinese students face a highly competitive and stressful examination system. Yet China, like many other countries, has concluded that national exams are the best way to ensure objectivity and avoid the favoritism that might occur if the system permitted greater subjectivity in university admissions decisions.

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