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To give their sons and daughters every chance, "education manias" will even sit in on classes to take notes when their children are sick. Parents' meetings are heavily attended. Teachers are greatly respected, and although their average salary is only $18,200, the job is much sought after by top college graduates. Japan spends roughly 10% of its $1.1 trillion gross national product on education (vs. 6.8% in the U.S.). Says Education Professor James Shields of the City University of New York: "The whole culture is pervaded by the ethic that with true effort you can succeed; that if you're not achieving, you haven't tried hard enough."
The Japanese not only try harder, they try longer. Children attend school 240 days a year, including half-days Saturday, compared with 180 in U.S. public schools. The extra time and effort soon show. Japanese children begin writing paragraphs in the first grade, while most Americans start in the second. Americans normally learn to calculate percentages in sixth or seventh grade, the Japanese by fifth. Japanese begin instruction in the English language in the seventh grade, while most Americans graduate from high school without a year of any foreign language. Although a Japanese high school student may have five hours of homework a night, worried parents often send their children to afternoon juku, or cram schools. Even preschoolers may attend. "Sleep four hours, pass," goes a plaintive Japanese saying.
"Sleep five hours, fail."
Students in elementary school must learn to read music and play a simple instrument like the recorder. Extracurricular activities include drama clubs, cooking clubs and sports. But for the 95% who go on to high school, such lighter fare is usually snuffed out.
In those final three years, all students study Japanese and Chinese classics, as well as linear algebra, inorganic chemistry, mechanical physics, electronic physics, statistics and calculus—subjects normally taught at the college level in the U.S. Interestingly, most students are not taught to use computers, largely because the all-important college entrance exams do not ask about computers.
Everything in Japanese secondary education—everything—is focused on these exams, given in February of the students' senior year. To win one of the 3,000 places at the most prestigious school, the University of Tokyo, a student must have one of the 3,000 top scores on its entrance exam. Other signs of intellectual excellence, and well-connected relatives, do not count. Only about 38% of those taking the exams get into a college on their first try; most of the rest make it after a year or even two of heavy additional juku sessions.