Education in Japan and England: a personal view

Japan and England tend to approach education in quite different ways and often for different ends. Japan tends to see the direct economic benefit that accrues from an educated population and therefore places a great deal of emphasis on schooling. Successive English governments have not been so keen to provide a nationwide system of schooling for several reasons: the fear of an educated working class and the feeling that it should be a private or clerical responsibility, for example. This does not mean that Japan devotes a particularly large slice of her resources to education but perhaps that she has more clearly defined aims.