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----- Original Message -----
From: "Frank Conlon" <conlon@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
To: <H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2012 4:25 AM
Subject: H-ASIA: AJISS-Commentary No.142 on Math and Science Education by
Kazuo Nishimura
> H-ASIA
> February 10, 2012
>
> AJISS-Commentary No.142 on Math and Science Education by Kazuo Nishimura
> **********************************************************************
> From: Japan Institute of International Affairs <e-commentary@jiia.or.jp>
>
> Editor: Akio Watanabe
> Editorial Board: Hideki Asari, Masashi Nishihara, and Taizo Yakushiji
> Online Publisher: Yoshiji Nogami
>
> AJISS-Commentary No.142
> "Revamp Math and Science Education" by Kazuo Nishimura
>
> [Kazuo Nishimura (nishimura@kier.kyoto-u.ac.jp) is Professor of
> Mathematical Economics at the Institute of Economic Research, Kyoto
> University. The views expressed in this piece are the author's own and
> should not be attributed to The Association of Japanese Institutes of
> Strategic Studies.]
>
> http://www.jiia.or.jp/en_commentary/201202/10-1.html
>
> Panasonic Shock
>
> In 1986, Panasonic Corporation made headlines by hiring four non-Japanese
> engineers. The number of foreign employees at this major Japanese
> electronics maker has steadily grown since then to reach 750 out of 1250
> newly employed in 2010. Panasonic again sent shock waves throughout
> Japanese industry and the job market by announcing that it would hire 1250
> foreigners overseas among 1390 new recruits in fiscal 2011. It added that
> the remaining 290 would be hired at home regardless of their
> nationalities, with foreign graduates also eligible.
>
> If Japanese engineers continue to decline both in number and quality, so
> will the country's global competitive edge. Japan was ranked the most
> competitive economy from 1989 through 1993, according to the Swiss-based
> International Institute for Management Development (IMD)'s World
> Competitiveness reports. However, its rank dropped to 17th in 2009, 27th
> in 2010, and 26th in 2011. In contrast, South Korea boosted its ranking
> from 29th to 23rd to 22nd, Taiwan from 23rd to eighth to sixth, and China
> from 20th to 18th to 19th during the same period. Japan has already been
> outpaced by other Asian countries in global competitiveness.
>
> Japan's economic stagnation is an undeniable fact. Yet on top of that, if
> the country is unable to provide proper math and science education and
> train skilled engineers, how can it ever restore its global
> competitiveness?
>
> There are more statistics showing how Japan is lagging behind other Asian
> countries. In 2009, four Asian cities/ countries - Shanghai, Singapore,
> Hong Kong and Taiwan - ranked among the top five in mathematics literacy
> measured by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a
> triennial survey of the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds conducted by
> the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Japan
> was ranked eighth. In terms of math and science achievements at the eighth
> grade, the top four were Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore,
> followed by Japan in fifth in 1999, 2003, and 2007, according to the
> quadrennial Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)
> conducted by the International Education Center.
>
> What to Do about the Problems?
>
> The biggest factor behind the declining academic ability of young people
> is the government's successive attempts at educational reform. In response
> to criticism of rote-learning, the government eased public school
> curricula in stages, following educational guidelines issued in fiscal
> 1980, 1992 and 2002, to allow students more leeway to pursue their own
> interests. The new school curricula, called "yutori kyoiku" (relaxed
> education), were accompanied by the introduction of preliminary university
> entrance examinations administered by the government. The standardized
> exams, first introduced in 1979 and revised in 1990, in effect led to the
> reduction of the number of subjects students had to study in senior high
> school. Mathematics and science probably suffered most from the reform
> drive, with both teaching hours and content diminished.
>
> What should we do then? Problems abound but, to begin with, let's consider
> what we can do to improve science education in elementary, junior and
> senior high schools (which are attended to for six, three, and three years
> respectively).
>
> First of all, we should consider moving up the start of science classes
> from the current third grade to the first grade in elementary school. This
> will save the need for high school students to take a series of basic
> science classes such as "Basic Science," "Integrated Science," and
> "Science and Human Life," which used to be taught in junior high school.
>
> We should also consider pushing back the start of elective courses until
> the third year of high school just like it used to be. Currently, high
> school students begin taking elective subjects in their second year. This
> practice has driven students away from math and science early on to focus
> on the other seemingly easier subjects required for college entrance
> exams, contributing to the academic decline of university students.
> Delaying the start of elective courses may allow students to study
> advanced physics, chemistry and biology, which may provide them incentives
> to pursue physics - a subject from which students are currently shying
> away.
>
> There is a widely-held view in Japan that studying science and mathematics
> is unrewarding. However, our research on university graduates who entered
> university subsequent to the introduction of the first standardized test
> in 1979 found that those who included mathematics among their entrance
> exam subjects earned one million yen in annual salary more than those who
> did not (on average, math test takers earn 7.48 million yen compared to
> non-math test takers' 6.41 million yen). We also conducted a survey on
> those who majored in science and engineering, and found that those earning
> the highest incomes were those whose favorite science was physics,
> followed by chemistry, geoscience, and biology. These findings suggest
> that, for students with majors in the humanities, studying mathematics
> broadens their career options and stabilizes their income while, for
> students with science majors, studying physics - and ideally all the three
> basic science subjects - affects their lifetime incomes.
>
> Finally, we need to introduce an objective evaluation system. Currently,
> objective test scores only count as one-fourth of students' final grades.
> The remainder is determined by subjective scores calculated by teachers
> based on their observations of student interest, willingness, attitude and
> so on. If we leave the evaluation system as it is, students will have to
> keep worrying about how they are viewed by teachers. If Japan wants to
> improve the academic ability of university graduates on par with that of
> other Asian countries, we need to abolish our subjective evaluation system
> and replace it with a more objective one. That will motivate students to
> perform better on paper tests, including international tests administered
> by PISA.
>
>
> ****************
> AJISS-Commentary is an occasional op-ed type publication of The
> Association of Japanese Institutes of Strategic Studies (AJISS) consisting
> of three leading Japanese think tanks: Institute for International Policy
> Studies (IIPS), The Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA), and
> Research Institute for Peace and Security (RIPS).
>
> http://www.jiia.or.jp/en/commentary/
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