Observation on the Education of Foreign Countries (Works by Zhu Yongxin on Education Series)

By Zhu Yongxin

“Education is a process of inheritance and innovation. Hence, it is important for China to research and learn from educational experiences in other countries.”—Zhu Yongxin

One of China’s most renowned scholars, Professor Zhu Yongxin has been at the forefront of educational experiment, innovation, and academic achievement. In this enlightening collection of essays, he shares his observations and reflections on the educational advances in countries throughout the world. Exploring both classic traditions and modern reforms, here and abroad, Yongxin provides a rich tapestry of ideas and initiatives which can help us move forward in the new education of China. The book includes:

* In-depth comparisons of the educational systems in China, Europe, North and South America, Africa, India, and other parts of Asia
* Notes from Yongxin’s travels abroad, featuring a wide range of schools, universities, and academic thought leaders
* The evolution of educational traditions throughout history—and the transformation of academic methods across the globe
* An educational strategy for China that combines the best of all possible worlds

“As an old Chinese saying goes, stones from other hills may serve to polish the jade of this one.” With these simple but profound words, Professor Zhu Yongxin invites us on a whirlwind journey through the world of education--a side-by-side, country-by-country comparison of the teaching styles, philosophies, and organizational models that are transforming schools across the globe. Yongxin’s travels and studies provide both a window to these worlds and a mirror to China’s educational development. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of our schools, our people, and our nation.

Essays include:

* Beautiful Sakura: Education Tours to Japan
* Passionate Samba: Impression of Education in South America
* The Fairy Tale World: An Investigation into European Education
* Two Worlds: Notes on Kenyan and American Education
* The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Comparative Education Studies
* Listening to the Meaters: Analysis of Thought on Education

Drawing from his experience and insights as a leader in education experiment, Yongxin compares and contrasts the various methods he discovered in other countries with the current state of China’s school system. He reveals the research results from his visits to the United States and Japan, uncovering fascinating parallels between the East and the West. Along the way, he examines various schools of thoughts from ancient Chinese thinkers to Marx, Engels, and Lenin, to some of the greatest innovators in the world today.

“As a developing country, it is significant to research and learn the educational experiences of advanced countries,” Yongxin writes. “Where there is life, there is humanity.”

Zhu Yongxin is a member of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, vice chairman of the China Association for Promoting Democracy (CAPD), and vice president of Chinese Society of Education (CSE). He also serves as a professor and PhD supervisor at Soochow University.

A sponsor of the New Education Experiment in China, Professor Zhu has won several awards for his influential work, including “60 great contributors in China’s Education of 60 years” (2009), “30th Anniversary of Reform and Opening Up: Person of the Year in China’s Education Area” (2008), “Top 10 News Figures in China’s Reform” (2007), and “Top 10 Elites in China’s Education” (2006).

Professor Zhu has published more than 400 articles on education both at home and abroad, and published over 30 books as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
• Release date: Dec 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9780071843744

Book preview

Yongxin

Preface

As an old Chinese saying says, Stones from other hills may serve to polish the jade of this one. Education is a process of spiritual inheritance and innovation, and mankind faces common issues regarding it. Hence, it is very important for China, a developing country, to research and learn from the educational experience in other countries, particularly in developed countries, to smooth its way.

This book presents my observations and reflections on education in foreign countries. It mainly contains my travel notes from foreign countries. I have been to Japan, South Korea, India, Russia, the United States, Germany, Britain, France, Morocco, Italy, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Latvia, Brazil, Argentina, Peru and other countries since my first visit abroad in October 1990. Education has always been my major concern during all of my visits abroad despite their different tasks such as academic research (one year of academic research in Japan in 1990) and study (at Harvard University in 2012), as well as investigation on culture, sports, science and technology, parliament, and other topics. In all of my travels, I would stop to visit whenever I came across schools on the way and talk with local educators. I even went to universities to breathe the air of education in the evening.

This book also incorporates my research on comparative education during my stays in the United States and Japan and following my return to China, most of which was completed in the 1990s. At that time, I acted as an academic dean and focused on investigating normal education and teaching management in the United States and Japan.

In addition, I have included my reading notes on the educational thought of Marx, Engels, and Lenin as well as the historical evolution and methodology of Western educational philosophy.

Therefore, the writing styles of the articles in this book are not strictly consistent. However, all of the articles, be they essays or papers, contain observations and reflections on education in foreign countries in order to provide a mirror for China’s education.

To achieve development, a country must, in the final analysis, build its own educational tradition and cater to its own national conditions and culture while drawing ideas from others’ experience and model. From the perspective of historical development, Chinese education boasts a time-honored history and fine traditions. China has experienced many changes, gains, and losses over the past decades. Chinese educators began to transform our traditional education by referring to the modern education system in Western countries following the May Fourth Movement at the beginning of the twentieth century. We began to copy the educational model of the Soviet Union beginning in the 1950s and entered a rapid development period of reform and opening up in the 1980s. On one hand, compulsory education was rapidly made universal and higher education was quickly popularized, but on the other hand, we had little time to think seriously about our own development model. We did not clarify our development strategy until the Outline of the National Plan for Long- and Medium-Term Educational Reform and Development was issued in 2010.

This book represents the records and reflections of a Chinese scholar comparing domestic and foreign education. I welcome your corrections and suggestions.

Zhu Yongxin

February 17, 2015

Chapter 1

Beautiful Sakura

Education Tours to Japan

I went to Japan and went abroad for the first time in October 1990. During my stay in Japan, I visited many schools, met many famous Japanese educators, and read many books about Japan’s education system. I coedited Research on Contemporary Education in Japan, which is made up of 16 volumes, with Wang Zhixin, who was living in Japan, after my return to China. Later, I went to Japan three more times, therefore, it is one of the countries that I’m most familiar with. This chapter presents some issues that are often overlooked in research on Japan’s education as well as some specific and minor issues that indicate the overall characteristics of Japan’s education.

The first 11 sections of this chapter were written during or after my first tour of Japan, and the last 5 sections were written during or after later tours.

Discover One’s Own Beauty from the Perspective of Onlookers

As an old Chinese saying goes, A mountain needn’t be high; it is famous so long as there is a deity on it. A lake needn’t be deep; it has supernatural power so long as there is a dragon in it. Shonai is a little-known mountain village in Yamagata Prefecture in Japan, which, however, has become more and more famous among foreigners in Japan thanks to the increasingly popular International Youth Festival.

The seventh Shonai International Youth Festival was held in Shonai from July 29 to August 5, 1991, and was attended by nearly 200 overseas students from 33 countries and regions. I was honored to be invited to this place that I had yearned to visit for a long time. Here is what I saw and heard in Shonai.

This year’s Shonai International Youth Festival was the largest in scale to date, costing nearly 10 million yen and involving nearly 10,000 volunteers. In consideration of the financial difficulty of overseas students, the organizer chartered tourist buses to pick up overseas students from Tokyo, Sendai, and other cities. Overseas students started an international exchange on the bus, preluding the youth festival in an interesting way.

That evening, the executive committee held a large-scale welcome ceremony with the theme of We Are Family on Earth, at which Mr. Yoshihiko Yamaguchi, director of the executive committee; Mr. Saito, mayor of Tsuruoka; and other figures addressed the ceremony respectively to welcome overseas students. Overseas students sang and danced with local young people and met with the family they were about to live with in a harmonious and warm atmosphere. At 21:00, overseas students moved to local guesthouses and continued to communicate with local young people till late at night.

On the following day (July 30), the most fascinating activity for overseas students—experience and learning of Japanese culture—was held. Overseas students went to various classrooms according to their interest to learn taishōgoto (a Japanese stringed musical instrument), calligraphy, ikebana, tea art, Japanese dance, Japanese kimono, kendo, karate, and judo. They would obtain a certificate of learning signed by the instructor for every lesson they took. At night, students were picked up in groups by villages and towns to conduct regional activities.

The third day featured a variety of unique regional activities in cities, towns, and villages, including spring bath, seawater bath, mountaineering, blinded watermelon chopping, net fishing, sports exchange, fireworks festival, Shonai dialect lecture, kids’ games, and local dragon god worship. My group started the activity ahead of schedule. Mr. Miwa Kenmochi led us to have a spring bath on the way, and then we watched a local traditional drama—Kurokawa Fireworks Noh—before arriving at Yanze Hotel in the mountain. Our group was made up of three Chinese people (one from Chinese Taiwan), two Indians, one American, one British, one Tanzanian, and one Hungarian, who was the group leader. We drank and chatted with five local young men, talked about local conditions and customs of our own countries, and performed folk songs and dances till 2:00 in the morning. On the following day, we paid a visit to Kurokawa Noh Hall and climbed the highest peak in the Shonai area—the Black Mountain.

On the afternoon of July 31, more than 140 families drove by car to pick up overseas students and brought them to their own houses to start a two-day and three-night homestay. The homestay is mainly designed to offer overseas students an opportunity to interact with Japanese people and let local residents know more about the outside world. Overseas students ate, lived, and went sightseeing with the Japanese families, and some paid a visit to their hosts’ farms to enhance a mutual understanding and sow the seed of friendship. My host was named Miur, who is a simple and honest farmer. The family has six members, and Mr. Miur took charge of all the farm work by machine. His three children are enthusiastic about calligraphy and got prizes in regional competitions. Mr. Miur is interested in basketball and acts as a volunteer basketball coach for local elementary and secondary schools. He accompanied me to visit the local schools. When I marveled at the facilities of these schools, he said, It is a matter of course because the best buildings here are always elementary and secondary schools in recent years. We visited local places of interest, introduced each other’s family and country, and did Japanese and Chinese cooking together during the two days, leaving a beautiful and unforgettable impression on each other.

On the fifth day, the Japanese families brought the overseas students to the local civil halls of cities, towns, and villages to continue regional activities. Our group was amazed by the local Kurokawa Noh and paper figure making. Local folk artisan Mrs. Yoshiko Sakurai taught us in person, and finally all of us finished our work and signed our names on it.

The grand finale of the International Youth Festival was held on the sixth day, on which the Shonai Airport Opening Ceremony was organized. Overseas students and nearly 10,000 local residents had an outdoor gathering at the Shonai Airport, which was to be put into use in autumn. In the morning, a wide variety of colorful activities were started, including the Miss Shonai selection, a villager tug of war, games for children, a costume party, a world knowledge corner, a charity bazaar for overseas students, and so on. All cities, towns, and villages in the Shonai area put up tents to advertise and sell their high-quality and famous special local products. Overseas students could taste local foods as well as foreign foods, which of course were prepared with the help of overseas students, by showing the ticket given by the executive committee.

When night fell, the square was still crowded and was ablaze with lights. A chorus from Waseda University feasted audiences with wonderful performances, and local secondary school students and overseas students performed folk songs and dances of their countries on the stage. Representatives of various countries read the declaration We Are Family on Earth in different languages on the stage, and a thunder of applause pushed the activity to its climax.

During the International Youth Festival, I interviewed Lady Sabuteko Yamaguchi about the origin, organization, and other issues of the Shonai International Youth Festival. The International Youth Festival in 1985 is the beginning of this activity. At that time, Sabuteko Yamaguchi and her husband Yoshihiko Yamaguchi returned to Shonai from South America. They found local people led a dull life, and in particular young farmers felt self-abased. There is nothing here. No woman wants to marry us, said young men. In order to help the young men build confidence in life and cultivate an emotion for their homeland culture, Mr. Yamaguchi advised the young men to invite overseas students to be their guests. As a result, the Shonai International Youth Festival was launched.

Mrs. Yamaguchi told me that they overcame many difficulties beyond imagination to hold the activity. There were many gossips at the very beginning who said, This weird couple is doing a strange thing. It is better to invite foreign investors than overseas students. What are the benefits of this activity to us? They also faced financial difficulties. At the very beginning, they sought help from local entrepreneurs, who, however, were unwilling to give alms again after one sponsorship, and they had no choice but to engage in scrap recycling and a charity bazaar of souvenirs, and sometimes they even had to narrow the scale of the activity. The organization was also arduous, involving preparation of an overseas student list, means of transportation and arrival time of overseas students, overseas student pickup, diet taboos of overseas students, and unexpected visits of overseas students or temporary visit cancelation. However, they withstood the gossip and overcame difficulties to insist on holding the international youth exchange activity.

Their insistence brought results. First of all, local residents in Shonai gradually became aware of their value. When overseas students showed a strong interest in the traditional culture and special local products in Shonai, rural young people began to rediscover themselves, their hometown, and the rural culture. I hope young people in Shonai will have the self-confidence that they are not ignored and Shonai is connected with the world, said Mr. Yamaguchi. Moreover, Shonai became more and more famous. More and more people hoped to take part in the Shonai International Youth Festival, more and more people knew Shonai, and Shonai had more and more friends. Many ordinary farmers have built profound friendships with overseas students, many of whom have returned to their own countries. The diligent work of the organizers of the Shonai International Youth Festival has borne bumper fruits. Not long ago, they received the Award for Regional Exchange and Revitalization granted by the Japan Foundation, and administrative organs began to financially aid the activity.

This secluded and quiet mountain village is respectable, remarkable, and admirable because it is farsighted, charming, and persistent to discover its beauty from the eyes of others and create a miracle to drive local economic development and cheer up local residents.

We are going to prepare for the next International Youth Festival tomorrow, said Mrs. Yamaguchi when shaking hands with me to say goodbye. I sincerely wish her a great success.

Let Technology Live for the People’s Life

Audiences of Modern Times starring Charlie Chaplin are puzzled by the confrontation between machine and human implied in the film. How does modern Japan address this issue? To find out the answer, I interviewed Mr. Goro Hirayama at Matsuya Foods, who is director of affairs of the Research Society of Japanese Life and Culture.

He was busy classifying and sorting various newspaper clippings and typing results into a computer system when I arrived at the company according to appointment. He told me that Matsuya Foods was founded 25 years ago. It specializes in processing traditional Chinese wheaten foods and is hailed as King of Dumplings in Japan. However, the company is always concerned about how to keep active vitality under new situations in the face of increasing competitors in recent years. "In Japan, all enterprises are collecting information and considering development in the future; otherwise they cannot survive. Big companies like Hitachi even have to consider the direction of the world in 10 years to come.

Humanity is the center. We first consider letting technology live in people’s lives, said Mr. Hirayama straightforwardly when he was asked how Japanese enterprises deal with the relationship between technology and people.

According to him, Japan has entered a society of super-mature culture, in which people’s demand is surplus and every family has 15 to 20 computer products on average. Even children play information collection now rather than insect collection as in the past. In the past, 10 men created one point of value, but now one man creates 10 points of value. Nevertheless, enterprises still focus on attempting to grasp the pulse of social needs and find out an order out of chaos. The most important mission of enterprises is to let technology live in people’s lives.

The corporate philosophy of Matsuya Foods is an image of seller of Chinese food culture based on technology in Japan, said Mr. Hirayama in the end. To this end, Matsuya Foods is attempting to join hands and cooperate with relevant Chinese scientific research institutions and enterprises to jointly develop new products and play a beneficial role in facilitating Japan-China food culture exchange.

Maybe we developing countries can draw ideas from the experience of letting technology live for people’s lives and making new inventions and creations in the ever-rich life.

Origination of the Miracle

The economic miracle in Japan after World War II attracts worldwide attention, and there are numerous monographs exploring the secret of this miracle in Chinese and foreign academic circles. However, what concerns me most is the biggest enlightenment from this neighbor for China. In other words, what important experiences should China learn from Japan? Therefore, I paid a special visit to Professor Yujiro Shinoda, director of Tokyo Research Institute for Society and Economy the next day after my arrival.

Professor Yujiro Shinoda is a well-known cultural celebrity in Japan who successively acted as a professor at the Society and Economy Research Institute of Sophia University, the president of the Nippon Foundation, the vice president of the Japan Science Association, a consultant of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives, and the honorary president of the Tokugawa Branch of Scholars Society. He now holds the office of the director of Tokyo Research Institute for Society and Economy and president of International Calligraphy Alliance. Professor Shinoda is committed to international cultural exchanges. He is very friendly to China and is passionate about the modernization drive in China. He organized and founded a science fund devoted to cultivating Chinese medical talents, paid three visits to China, and was met by Deng Xiaoping and other state and party leaders.

Professor Shinoda wrote and translated many works and monographs, and he published 50-plus works including Small Group Operation, Declaration of Cooperative Operation, The Japanese and The German, Island Country and the Japanese, Japanese Disease Syndrome, The Pretentious Japanese, Myth and Reality of Japan, Knights of the Temple, Era of Culture, Miracle of Germany (1992EC Integration: European Community), Rise and Fall of Japan, the US and Soviet Union and Composition of World Economy, World Map Five Years Later, Body Language, and Interpersonal Communication.

When asked what important experience China should learn from Japan, Professor Shinoda thought for a while and then slowly said, First is education, second is education, and third is education. Modernization is a very complicated and systematic project and involves numerous factors including politics, economy, military, society, culture, and education. However, the starting point or fundamental project of modernization is undoubtedly education, he continued. In his opinion, China and Japan had the same starting point of modernization before the First Opium War in 1840, but Japan made great efforts in making education universal during the Meiji Restoration and reached a 99 percent schooling rate of compulsory education in 1910. Overall improvement in people’s quality lays a solid intelligence foundation for Japan to introduce, absorb, and digest advanced foreign technologies, and more important, forms civilized practices and codes of conduct in the society and fosters a favorable social atmosphere for modernization.

It is a matter of great urgency, said Professor Shinoda, without pausing, when I told him that education is also a central issue considered and discussed by Chinese intellectuals and Chinese leaders are also attempting to address backward basic education, low status of teachers, shortage of educational funds, and other related issues.

Why does this scholar engaged in social and economic research attach great importance to education? Actually, the common mission of academic research is to answer one question—how to contribute to better survival and development of humanity, said Professor Shinoda to me with a smile. The economic issue is always closely related to the political, social, educational, and other issues. If we regard the economic issue as an isolated phenomenon, we will easily attend to the trifles and neglect the essentials or cure the symptoms only. Various countries face different problems, but the overriding problem for China is education.

More than one hour passed quickly, and I shook hands with Professor Shinoda to say goodbye. First is education, second is education, and third is education, he reiterated with a smile. I met Professor Shinoda again one month later, when he invited me to a lunch meeting on the second Thursday in every month. He was an advocate of the theory of cooperative operation in Japan and the first director of affairs of the Japan Cooperative Operation Institute. His social and economic research institute is the base camp of cooperative operation in Japan. The lunch meeting features a wide variety of lectures every month. For example, it successively held Pursue Unity of Individual and Entirety (Fazang Osuka), Buddhism Research (Yiwu Tianli), The Third Path (Mada Takeyama), Wisdom and Operation of Japan (Fazang Osuka), PS Operation, Germany and Japan (Yujiro Shinoda), Discussion on Thinking Change (Norihiro Goto), and so on. Entrepreneurs and theorists communicate with each other and talk over the past and present, which plays an important role in broadening their horizons.

Professor Shinoda sent his book Small Group Operation to me, which was translated by me into Chinese during my stay in Japan and was officially published by Zhejiang University Press. I also translated another book by Professor Shinoda, How Does a Man Defeat Himself—Introduction to Prakrti-visuddhi, which was an influential monograph published by Nihon Keieisha. The core content of the book is summarized by faith, hope, and love. As the author put it, faith, hope, and love are the best medicines for overcoming difficulties in life. There are many difficulties in one’s life, such as death of relatives, torment of disease, and failure in work. People invariably have a feeling of helplessness and a sense of frustration because of these difficulties. To overcome such difficulties, these three virtues are essential.

Faith means self-confidence and belief in success. It is the author’s opinion that actually all people have nearly the same potential, and giving best play to this potential always relies on self-confidence. He gives an example. Both you and other people have a success probability of 50 percent no matter what you do, but if you have self-confidence and a goal, you will surpass others by 50 percent and then have a success probability of 75 percent. In this sense, When a man says ‘I will certainly succeed,’ he is successful in his career to some extent. Hope is associated with faith. According to the author, only a man who always has hope for life can overcome setbacks and get out of the trouble. He highly appreciates a new aphorism in Germany, sun in the heart and song in the mouth. The author also calls the man having hope a philosopher and believes the man is surrounded and pushed up by the people like a lighthouse. Hence, hope frequently saves people at a critical juncture and even encourages people in daily life. Love means the service spirit and dedication spirit. In the author’s opinion, faith and hope are the two wheels of a cart, based on which a man builds his spiritual life. However, the motion of these two wheels depends on the axle, which is love. He compares love to vitamin in life and believes nothing grows on the place without love, love is stronger than any other things, and a man who has wide and profound emotions of love will have a very wide path of life.

Professor Shinoda is a Christian. Faith, hope, and love are core ideas of Christianity, but Professor Shinoda reinterprets them using theories of sociology and psychology and puts forward several specific and feasible methods such as how to overcome difficulties and setbacks, how to get along well with others (including superiors), how to effectively use time, how to succeed in clutch-play undertakings, how to regulate one’s mood, how to adapt to the environment, how to strike a balance between wish and reality, and how to treat disease and insomnia.

Professor Shinoda took good care of me during my one-year stay in Japan. He presented calligraphy of The Biggest Wonder in Life Is Predestined Relationship to me before I returned to China. My meeting with Professor Shinoda was predestined, wasn’t it?

Shared Dream

I decided to systematically and profoundly understand Japan’s education, and postwar education in particular, after my interview with Professor Shinoda. To this end, I paid a visit to Mr. Akio Igasaki, former director of the Japan National Education Research Institute and editor-in-chief of Education Studies.

Akio Igasaki boasts great attainments in research on Japan’s modern history and recently published History of Education in Modern Japan, Chronology of History of Japan’s Education, Brief History of Japan’s Education After World War II, and other books. Akio Igasaki attended the International Seminar on Curriculum Development and Social Progress in China not long ago, and when I met him there our conversation naturally started with the seminar. He told me the paper entitled Historical Experience and Lesson of Educational Curriculum and Textbook Reform in Japan he delivered at the seminar urges Japan to resolutely guard against the rise of militarism education and continue to take a path of peace and democracy education.

According to Akio Igasaki, the starting point of postwar Japanese education was to criticize and reflect on prewar militarism education. Pursuant to the Education Basic Law promulgated on March 31, 1947, we hope to cultivate talents who pay attention to individual dignity, pursue truth, and love peace and should completely make general and individualized cultural education universal. On this basis, Japan launched several reforms on the educational system and content, effectively improving the cultural and technological level of all citizens and guaranteeing rapid economic growth and political democracy.

However, undeniably, postwar education in Japan was overshadowed by militarism, imposing a great threat to peace and democracy education. Akio Igasaki gave me many examples. For example, in the autumn of 1952, then Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida said, We must consolidate a foundation for military expansion from material and mental perspectives. Spiritually, we must infuse patriotic psychology by education of leading Japanese education, beautiful territory, and geography as well as a spiritual foundation for military expansion. In 1954, the government called peace education Red Education and suppressed 50 teachers at Asahioka Middle School in Kyoto known as a fortress of peace and democracy education. In 1963, the textbook named New History of Japan written by Professor Ienaga failed to pass review by the Japanese Ministry of Education because it opposed reappearance of tragic war. In 1966, the Central Council for Education Accreditation published a report entitled On Expansion and Rectification of Secondary Education in the Later Stage supporting the hegemonic thought of powerful Japan between the Orient and the Occident. In 1982, the Japanese Ministry of Education forced authors and publishers to change invasion in secondary school textbooks into entry. According to Akio Igasaki, the share of cultural and educational appropriations in the national budget kept declining year by year after the 1980s and dropped from 9.6 percent in 1981 to 8.1 percent in 1988, while that of military appropriations increased from 5.1 percent in 1981 to 6.5 percent in 1988.

The Japanese people oppose militarism and call for peace education despite haunting militarism, said Akio Igasaki gladly. In the 1950s, the Japanese Educational Labor Union put forward a slogan of do not send students to the battlefield. Several millions and even tens of millions of Japanese people protest against and even demonstrate against every rise of militarism.

To conclude, education is the theme of the twenty-first century. China and Japan now face different problems in education. China needs to better and more quickly make compulsory education universal and improve the quality of all citizens, while Japan must consolidate peace and democracy education and prevent resurgence of militarism. However, we both strive for the beautiful future of humanity and for a warm and peaceful earth.

Lessons and experience are of equal enlightenment, although they are inconsistent with the original intention of my interview, and peace and democracy education is also pursued by the Chinese people. This voice in the foreign land makes me full of hope for the shared dream of humanity’s tomorrow.

Views of Japanese Educators on China’s Education

How do Japanese educators view China’s education? To find out the answer, I paid special visits to Japanese scholars who were concerned about and studied China’s education during my stay in Japan, including Gyou Daita, president of the Japanese Education Society and honorary professor at the University of Tokyo; Toshio Ogawa, honorary professor at Nagoya University; Masami Yamamoto, director and professor of the School of Humanities, Tokyo Metropolitan University; Toru Umakoshi, professor at Nagoya University; Hikarru Nakano, professor at Chuo University; Shinichiro Shirai, professor at Hosei University; Akio Igasaki, editor-in-chief of Education Studies; Shunichi Nishimura, vice president and director of affairs of the Japanese International Education Society; Zhong Qinghan, director of the Asian Culture Research Institute; Michio Saito, honorary professor at Senshu University; Shinichi Suzuki, professor at Waseda University; Yoshiharu Ebihara, professor at Tokai University; Teruhisa Horio, professor at Tokyo University; Ayoshi Niijima, former professor at Waseda University; and Hiroshi Yokoyama, honorary professor at Waseda University. Most of these interviewees have published several works and research reports on the history and current situation of China’s education, and many of them were cooperating with Chinese educators and scholars on research. Moreover, they are members of the Japan-China Education Research Exchange Conference headed by Professor Gyou Daita, president of the Japanese Education Society, founded in March 24, 1990.

As an old Chinese saying goes, stones from other hills may serve to polish the jade of this one. Maybe opinions of famous Japanese educators can enlighten us and are useful to the development of China’s education.

1. On the Heritance and Development of China’s Education Tradition

Tradition and reform always constitute a contradiction to be correctly handled in the process of educational reform and development. Ignoring or abandoning education tradition will reduce education to national nihilism, while sticking to tradition and resisting reform will inevitably stagnate educational development. Therefore, it is necessary to specifically analyze education traditions and reject the dross and assimilate the essence.

What are the opinions of Japanese educators in this regard? According to Igasaki, there are many excellent traditions in educational thought from ancient China, and for example, many educational thoughts of Confucius and Mencius are references to modern education. Igasaki said, the ‘studious’ spirit of Confucius and Mencius as well as Confucius’s civilian education thought, combination of the general ‘six arts’ with the specialized ‘four subjects,’ the principle of ‘teaching students according to their aptitude,’ valuing individuality and ability development and experience, and the thought of ‘to study and not think is a waste; to think and not study is dangerous’ should be inherited. Cai Yuanpei’s thought of democratic education as well as the excellent educational thought of Tao Xingzhi devoted to national liberation during the Revolution of 1911 should be carried forward.

Mr. Horio and Zhong Qinghan specially mentioned the importance attached to people in China’s education tradition. For example, Mr. Horio believed that compared with the Japanese, the Chinese are generally tolerant and honest and have personality charm. This is of course closed related to the vast territory of China and the tradition of Confucianism in China, and more important to education.

Ebihara believed rejection against money worship in China’s educational and cultural traditions is of practical significance. He hoped the lofty morality of the Eighth Route Army under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) would be carried forward in modern China.

All Japanese educators hoped that Chinese educators would integrate tradition and reality well to develop national features. Toru Umakoshi argued that Chinese educators should reconcile the tradition upholding humanity with socialist educational concepts. Mr. Nishimura believed Chinese educators should attach importance to folk and mass thoughts and arts, and Mr. Nakano claimed to value special educational and cultural traditions in various regions. When expounding and explaining principles of education (e.g., objectives and content of education), Chinese educators should attach importance to national tradition and teach students according to their aptitude while emphasizing well-rounded development, said Mr. Saito. Mr. Nijima also advised the Chinese government to pay attention to private schools set up by nongovernmental sectors. In terms of form of school administration, the school garden of Confucius and the academy in modern times are precious fine traditions.

In addition, Japanese educators also mentioned the educational thought and practices of Lu Xun (Toshio Ogawa), combination of productive labor with socialist education after the liberation (Hikarru Nakano), and Chinese teachers are tireless in teaching and are enthusiastic in education (Ayoshi Niijima), etc.

2. On Problems Existing in China’s Education

According to Japanese educators, problems in China’s education are mainly concentrated in the following aspects.

The first one is the issue of teachers. Toshio Ogawa and Masami Yamamoto believed that China should raise the social and economic status of teachers. Politicians should become aware of the significance of education work and cultivate more higher-caliber teachers. The biggest problem is that teachers receive poor benefits and fewer and fewer people want to become a teacher. Absence of teacher education in a broad sense is the biggest problem. As far as I’m concerned, a teacher will encounter numerous difficulties if he has no strong willingness for work. While addressing the issue of teachers’ benefits, it is very necessary for China to carry out activities helping teachers understand and research education, noted Hikarru Nakano. Japanese educators also incisively saw the internal relation between improving teachers’ treatments and improving teachers’ quality.

The second one is the issue of basic education. Ebihara, Niijima, Yokosuka, and Niijima believed it is imperative to popularize compulsory general education and carry out education for illiteracy and elementary education in rural and backward areas in an all-around way. There is a huge gap between high-level education and general education. On the one hand, China has high-level education and research in the world, and on the other hand, there are nearly 200 million illiterate people in China. I think this is the biggest problem, said Mr. Yokosuka. Some scholars also proposed to raise the proportion of investments in higher education and elementary education.

The third one is the issue of educational appropriation. Suzuki and Nijima thought it is imperative for China to expand the scale of educational finance and increase educational appropriations. The central and local governments do not pay enough attention to education and allocate educational appropriations in a small proportion, thus influencing educators’ research, achievement in education, and teachers’ enthusiasm. To really realize four modernizations, China should cultivate talents and value intellectuals, said Zhong Qinghan.

The fourth one is relative independence of education. Nishimura, Toru Umakoshi, and Igasaki claimed to respect relative independence of education as far as possible. It is necessary to cultivate masters of politics and subjects of production or economy by education. To raise the status and share of education, conscious ‘participation’ of the people is necessary, said Mr. Igasaki.

Moreover, Mr. Horio also mentioned the issue of key schools and believes key schools breed unfair competition and more benefits for good students and deprives ordinary students of opportunity and confidence. Suzuki argued that a centralized educational administration system is also adverse to the development of education. Horio also stated excessive emphasis on discipline by Chinese schools may depress students’ individuality. It is necessary and correct to moderately emphasize discipline, but excessive emphasis will get just the opposite. Collectivism aims to give better play to individuality, he said.

3. On Educational Reform in China

What Is the Most Important Issue in the Process of Educational Reform in China?

Japanese educators had different answers to this question. Here are some of their important views and opinions:

Nakano: From the perspective of the experience of postwar Japan, the educational research movement by the Japanese Teachers Organization played a very important role (1950–1990). Therefore, Chinese teachers should develop their prospects and guidelines of educational reform. He believed teachers should become a dominant force of educational reform.

Zhong Qinghan: Educational reform cannot be top-down. Instead, a reform advisory committee should be set up that covers all sectors, educational administrative staffs at elementary and secondary schools and universities and intellectuals. Moreover, staffs working at educational administrative departments must be experts in various aspects. In his opinion, it is necessary to listen to opinions of Chinese scholars studying abroad or residing abroad, and Taiwan achieved economic development because it listened to constructive opinions of scholars abroad to a great extent. He encouraged the free airing of views for educational reform.

Shinichiro Shirai: There are three key issues for China’s educational reform. First is enrichment of basic education—overall development on a national scale; second is raising of teachers’ status and enrichment (cultivation and research) of teacher resources; and third is democracy of educational administration.

Yokosuka: To enrich and improve elementary education, it is necessary to improve benefits of elementary school teachers (stop having teachers paid by the local people at an early date) and build an elementary schoolteacher cultivation system at the university level.

Igasaki: First is improvement in educational legislation and the educational fiscal system; second is improvement of teachers’ economic, social, and cultural status; and third is facilitation of educational scientific research based on the educational reality.

Additionally, Ebihara, Toru Umakoshi, Nijima, and Horio also mentioned consistency of the education system, development of a five-year plan for education, confirmation of the right of access to education, and establishment of a highly socialist democracy.

Suggestions on Educational Reform in China

Japanese educators put forward many inspiring proposals for educational reform in China. To be specific, first, to value educational statistics and educational information work. The precondition for educational reform is to constantly publish numerous educational statistics and data. We can promote the development of educational reform only by correctly grasping quantity information and strengthening educational scientific research, said Yokosuka and Nakano.

Second, to pay attention to teachers’ dominant role in educational reform. We must arouse teachers’ enthusiasm for education to smoothly facilitate educational reform. To this end, we should establish a corresponding social status and guiding force of teachers, noted Igasak.

Third, to attach importance to basic education. Nijima claimed to lay a solid foundation instead of aiming too high. Ebihara hoped to reform elementary and secondary education in a bottom-up way and subsidize compulsory education by military expenses saved from disarmament. In order to increase financial resources of basic education, beneficiaries of higher education (students and parents) should bear tuition, and the gap in elementary education and secondary education between urban and rural or remote areas should be narrowed, said Toru Umakoshi.

Fourth, to form public opinions for educational reform. According to Suzuki and Nakamura, educational reform should be extensively supported by public opinion. To this end, it is necessary to allow free discussion on educational reform and welcome the introduction and implementation of educational reform schemes with local characteristics.

In addition, some scholars such as Masami Yamamoto proposed to handle the contradiction between popularization and improvement and entirely implement the principle of proceeding from actual conditions and linking theory with practice.

Which Lessons and Experience Should China Learn from Japan’s Education for Its Own Educational Reform?

We should pay attention to and reflect on Japanese educators’ opinions and insights in this regard. Learning from the experience and lessons of developed countries can yield twice the result with half the effort to build the socialist educational system with Chinese characteristics.

Yokosuka: Excessive examination competition imposes heavy pressure on young people and gives rise to misconduct. Excessive knowledge competition adversely impacts social development. I hope China’s education will not follow the same old disastrous road.

Nakano: China must objectively understand contradictions in Japan’s economic development and should not excessively beautify economic development. It is wrong to believe that education is reformed for the sake of economy. Hence, attention should be paid to nongovernmental research and exchange in addition to intergovernmental educational and cultural exchange.

Saito: It is necessary to really link theory with practice. Chinese scientific educational researchers are isolated from practitioners of elementary and secondary education. In this regard, China can refer to Japan’s experience in paying attention to concerted effort of researchers and practitioners in the nongovernmental educational movement.

Igasak: Educational problems in Japan include ‘examination war,’ cramming education, managerial education, bureaucracy, high tuition, and so on. I hope Chinese educators can overcome these problems in educational reform.

Zhong Qinghan: Universities cannot pay attention only to specialized education for future employment. If general basic education is not valued, graduates will find it hard to adapt to the ever-changing industrialized society. Take Japan for example. As labor is increasingly divided, technologies and know-how needed by new cutting-edge technologies and facilities at factories or companies can only be internally educated by enterprises in a bid to not waste education and finally strengthen effectiveness of education.

Toru Umakoshi: It is necessary to expand the scope of compulsory education, and in particular in rural areas. In the higher education stage, colleges and universities within the jurisdiction of ministries and commissions should be under the unified leadership of the State Education Commission; interprovincial competition must be rewarded.

Horio: There are two shortcomings in Japan’s education. One is overly strict management and too many state interventions, and the second one is competition doctrine without cooperation and friendship. China should pay attention to these two shortcomings when learning from advantages of Japan’s education.

Suzuki: China must pay attention to avoid following shortcomings in Japan’s education: (1) slack reflection on the essence of culture; (2) ignorance to opinions and requirements of children and adolescents to a great extent; and (3) education based on a genuine philosophy of peace has not formed yet.

4. On China-Japan Educational Research and Exchange

At present, Chinese and Japanese educators share a good aspiration to strengthen communication and further cooperate on research and have made preparations in organization, personnel, funds, and psychology, laying a solid foundation for research and exchange. We conducted a survey in order to make research and exchange in the future more targeted, more profound, and more fruitful.

Which Issues of China’s Education Do Japanese Educators Want to Know and Research Most?

Japanese educators gave different answers to this question, reflecting their individual research interest to some extent.

Toshio Toru Umakoshi: The operation condition of university as a ‘unit’ under jurisdiction of the State Education Commission. The current situation of the community way (provision of food and accommodation) as well as the future reform direction of the unit.

Ogawa: Current situations of secondary education and adult education.

Nakano: Thoughts and practices of China’s education (including educational thoughts, educational reforms, etc.) during the two world wars; history of Japan-China educational exchange in the period; obstacles to educational popularization and efforts made for overcoming obstacles.

Niijima: Utilization of adult education facilities (including literacy education belonging to social education); many teaching methods applied by the People’s Liberation Army in revolutionary wars.

Ebihara: Comprehensive analysis on the education of Manchukuo; formation of Asia-Pacific Rim Circle and the role of China’s education.

Zhong Qinghan: What are the research methods of education? Are research methods of educational sociology introduced? We hope for more educational statistics and establishment of information institutions (Radio and Newspaper Office in Japan) making information easily accessible to most people. This is very important to researchers.

Yamamoto: How do Chinese educational researchers and educational workers treat tradition?

Igasaki: Japan’s education has been greatly influenced by China’s education (thought, system, and content) from ancient times. Comparative research on China’s and Japan’s education from ancient to modern times can show shared topics of education in both countries.

Shirai: Reform of normal education (reform after the founding of New China, historical development and current topic), the current situation of combination of labor and education, role of school and class in personality formation (theory and practice of collective formation), family, region, and personality formation.

Nishimura: The current situations and prospect of rural and farmer education.

With Which Aspects Should China-Japan Educational Research and Exchange (Including Joint Research) Start?

Answers of Japanese educators to this question also embody their individual values and are of reference significance for cooperative research.

Horio: Japan and China have special relations. Japan’s invasion into China was a disaster to the Chinese people and we cannot easily forget this history. In terms of educational research and exchange, we cannot be confined to intergovernmental exchange. We should strengthen nongovernmental exchange, which is a precondition for profound educational research.

Suzuki: Views on parent education, research on action principles, and comparative research on methods of educational research. I hope for gains in these aspects.

Nishimura: We should create opportunities for cultivating competent young researchers and reduce exchanges among aged scholars.

Nijima: Comparative research on private schools in Japan and China.

Ogawa: I hope for research and exchange on specialized school and social education.

Nakano: It is of practical significance to conduct joint research and survey on exchange of historical experience in educational reform and moral education in China and Japan.

Toru Umakoshi: We can build a short-term teacher exchange system in elementary and secondary school stages. I have participated in joint research on higher education between the Higher Education Research Institute of Peking University and Department of Education of Nagoya University. I hope for a higher level of research in this regard.

Ebihara: I hope to conduct cooperative research on the history of Japan-China educational exchange and explore the formation of the Asia-Pacific Rim Circle and educational reform.

Ayoshi Nijima: We jointly research educational issues (advantages and disadvantages) in the process of modernization in both countries.

Yokosuka: I hope to strengthen exchange between young researchers and teachers in China and Japan. On the other hand, it is a pity that educational exchange between the two countries is only in the stage of etiquette communication, namely business card exchange by celebrities.

Saito: I hope to conduct comparative research on thought and movement of life education.

Generally speaking, Japan-China educational exchange is in the initial and start-up stage and we still have much arduous work to do. Japan already set up the Japan-China Educational Research and Exchange Conference and began to invite Chinese scholars to give lectures and conduct research. Stones from other hills may serve to polish the jade of this one. The opinions and suggestions of these Japanese educators, who have considered and researched China’s education for a long time, are very precious and are of reference value. We also hope China will set up a corresponding institution or organization to make concerted efforts to push China-Japan educational research and exchange to a new height.

Challenge the Unknown

To cultivate students’ ability, Japanese universities adopt a credit system in the teaching organization form and combine the academic discipline system and lecture system for classroom teaching. With respect to extracurricular classroom, they encourage student clubs to carry out activities and support students studying on a work-study basis and traveling for study. I lived not far away from the University of Tokyo and went to Jochi University for study and research every day during my stay in Japan, witnessing the roles of lecture and student clubs in cultivating students’ abilities.

The lecture system and academic discipline system are two main teaching forms adopted by Japanese universities. The former is generally applied to teaching of specialized disciplines, while the latter is generally used to teach liberal education. However, there is no strict boundary between them. The lecture system has the following characteristics:

1. Combination of Instruction and Exercise

The lecture system of Japanese universities generally has no cramming education, and teachers get students involved to explore knowledge together instead of purely imparting knowledge. A main practice is to learn special subjects at universities in Europe and America in the form of discussion seminars. In other words, a teacher arranges discussion and reference books according to teaching contents and participates in students’ discussion in the class. Students speak one by one or make priority representation, and the teacher finally makes a summary statement and may not give concluding opinions, leaving room for continuous thinking and development by students.

2. Student as the Subject of Lecture

In the academic discipline system, the teacher imparts knowledge as a subject, and designs and determines the setting of teaching objectives, selection of teaching contents, arrangement of teaching links, and planning of teaching process. However, in the lecture system, students become the subject and thus must make full preparations and actively speak in discussions to maintain a normal lecture, which otherwise will exist in name only.

3. Focus on Imparting of New Knowledge and New Tendencies

The lecture system does not emphasize fixed textbooks and generally introduces or designates multiple references to students. Teachers also focus on introducing new knowledge and new tendencies instead of stressing systematic knowledge, and many teachers also introduce their research achievements or ongoing research to students. Some teachers tell students priorities and difficulties of their research topics and raise challenging questions to students to help them think and study from different perspectives. Students’ answers can invariably broaden teachers’ horizons and enrich their research. Some teachers can form their own scientific research achievements by years of lectures. The lecture system really embodies the truth that teaching and learning improve and enhance each other.

4. Importance Attached to Guiding Students to Master Research Methods

The lecture system of Japanese universities lays an emphasis on teaching students methods of researching, handling, and solving problems, and teachers spend much time and effort in guiding students to enter the introduction stage of one specialized discipline and teach specific contents of the discipline a long time after the lecture. In the eyes of many university teachers in Japan, the cycle of knowledge upgrading is constantly accelerated in the information society and students will be unable to adapt to the ever-changing society and changes in the employment market if teachers only impart knowledge. Students will adapt to changes in the future society only when teachers guide them to master the methods of initiatively exploring knowledge and researching problems. In addition, mastering research methods is also of important significance in helping students learn new knowledge and independently discover new knowledge.

5. Paper Exams and Student Societies

Generally speaking, the lecture system does not adopt closed-book exams and require students to memorize much ready-made knowledge. Instead, it adopts the paper exam and requires students to express their views and opinions on the content of a special lecture. A paper is generally made up of 3,000 to 5,000 words and must have an argument, support for the argument, and examples. Students must read lots of references, but they are banned from plagiarizing, making up, or muddling through the paper. Teachers will score the paper of a student based on creative ideas and wide knowledge, as well as the student’s attendance rate of classroom discussion and learning attitude. The paper exam is undoubtedly an effective means of measuring students’ ability in discovering, analyzing, and solving problems, although it is very subjective.

The lecture system is actually a form of teacher-student cooperative teaching, which turns students into subjects of the learning process and gets students involved in the research process. It is of positive significance in cultivating students’ abilities, and in particular abilities in reading, processing information, researching questions, and initiatively acquiring knowledge.

The lecture system is a main form of ability cultivation in classroom teaching, while student societies are an important form in which students launch a variety of activities to develop their ability. Japanese university students have very rich extracurricular activities. According to statistics, university students spend 8.3 hours on extracurricular activities on average every week, among which boys spend about 9 hours and girls about 6.7 hours on extracurricular activities. Extracurricular activities mainly cover sports (baseball, judo, fencing, sumo, I-go, swimming, tennis, table tennis, rugby, gymnastics, skiing, etc.), literature and arts (vocal music, instrumental music, artistic skill, dance, fine arts, calligraphy, ikebana, tea art, drama, photography, film and TV, etc.), academics (politics, economics, psychology, and so on), and social activities (donation to refugees, condolence to orphans and widows, political assembly, etc.).

Most of these activities are organized by student societies. Most student societies at Japanese universities are at the department level, and some department-level student societies are united to form university-level clubs. In addition, there are also national-level student organizations such as the Independent Federation of Japanese Students. Most student societies are organized in the form of student clubs or friendship clubs. Student societies organize lectures, exhibitions, concerts, dramas, competitions, group travel, and other activities. There are many student clubs at universities in Japan. Every university has about 80 student clubs on average, and nearly all students join one or more clubs. Student clubs are also organizers of student activities and an important place for developing students’ ability. To some extent, university students in Japan grow up in the student clubs.

Take Meiji University in the downtown of Tokyo for example. Meiji University is a typical medium-sized university and has approximately 200 student clubs and societies under the management of five sophisticated organizations, including the Culture Department Federation, the Science Department Federation, the Research Department Federation, the Sports Department Federation, and the Supports Federation. One hundred societies, including the Asia Research Society, Africa Research Society, America Research Society, Japan History Research Society, China Research