British and Japanese Education

The British education has changed a lot under the Thatcher administration from 1979 to 1990, and in Japan, there have been three major educational reforms since the Meiji Restoration in 1868. With the times and the movement in the education, there have been some different aspects between Japan and the UK, ranging from the compulsory education, the examination system to the size of classes. It is normal that different countries have different policies on the education system since the idea of what kind of people we want to cultivate to be differs from country to country. The differences in education show what the people in each country think highly of.

      One distinctive difference between the British education system and the Japanese education system is the sizes of classes. The students in Japan are taught in groups which, by comparison with Britain, usually would be considered to be large classes of about 40 pupils. It seems, in the Japanese education, that an important factor lies in the idea of creating harmony. Traditionally Japanese people learn from a young age how to cooperate and help each other, and how to act within a group. There are some activities forming cooperative attitude found mostly in Japanese elementary and secondary school education, and ‘han’ which literally means ‘group’ is one of the most meaningful ones. Han is usually composed of 6 people in a homeroom class and they work in the group to accomplish a variety of activities. For instance, each han has an assigned role to broom and wipe the floor, clean the blackboard, take out the rubbish and such, and the students themselves take responsibility for keeping their school clean. In this way, Japanese students learn how to work in a large group and in harmony. On the other hand, the British education seems to think highly of individuality rather than harmony and groups. In British classroom, desks are often set in a circle and a U-shaped pattern so that both teachers and students can...