Teaching or Testing: The Role of the State in Japan
Japan rarely fails to get a mention these days when the inadequacies of Britain's system of vocational education and training are discussed. Whether it is the state-prescribed core curriculum proposed in the 1987 Great Educational Reform Bill, or the standard Ministerial complaint that British employers do not invest enough in their employees' training, comparison with Japan is often explicit. There is a firm belief that in the linkage between Competence and Competition (the title of a much-quoted report a US/ Germany/Japan/Britain comparison published by MSC/NEDO, Hayes et al., 1984), the Japanese have it better.
How The Japanese Learn To Work
1. The General School System 2. Who Goes Where? 3. Vocational Streams in the Mainline Formal Educational System 4. Post-Secondary, Non-University VET: Public Sector 5. Private Sector Non-University Training Schools 6. Training in the Enterprise 7. Standards and Qualifications 8. The Cost of VET and How it is Shared 9. Policies and Prospects.
Schooling Standards in England and Germany: Some Summary Comparisons Bearing on Economic Performance
‘One of the most long-standing problems in this country is our failure to our school-leavers adequately for work.’ (The Chancellor of the Exchequer in his budget March 1985) The way higher productivity depends on a workforce that is technically-skilled at all levels—from operators and foremen to senior engineers and directors of production—was examined on the basis of an interview-study of matched engineering firms in Britain and Germany in the last issue of this Review. The present article traces differences in workforce skills between these two countries to differences in preparation at school, particularly in mathematics and vocational education, and particularly for those in the lower half of the ability spectrum.