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| Zeal for education; common point between Lesotho and Japan |
| Increase in compulsory education at rate of 10% every 3 years |
| Attaining 49% as the rate of university entrance |
| Japan's historical zeal for education; books as no. 1 import item |
| Japanese ODA policy and the education sector |
| 30% of Japanese ODA to Lesotho is to the education sector |
It is likely that none of the students here have ever been to Japan. And, you might think Japan and Lesotho are completely different countries. Certainly, we are different. Japan's surface area is about ten times larger than that of Lesotho, though it is about one third of that of South Africa. Japan is not a very large country, but its population is 127 million; more than 60 times larger than that of Lesotho. Japan's GDP is about $ 4 trillion, and is about 3,400 times larger than that of Lesotho with $1.2 billion. The total global sum of GDP is about $ 30 trillion, with US GDP taking up about $8 trillion, the EU about $7 trillion, and Japan $4 trillion. This means that these three account for about two thirds of the world economy.
However, our countries have similarities, too. We both have a Constitutional Monarchy system. Lesotho is a Kingdom with a long history, and Japan's Imperial Dynasty has the world's longest hereditary history with continuity traceable since at least the sixth century. Another common point is that our landscape is quite mountainous with a small-cultivated area, and few mineral resources. Lesotho is a mountainous country whose altitude is between 1,200 and 3,480 meters, with a cultivated area of only 13%. Likewise, 70% of Japan's land area is covered by forests and high mountains such as Mt. Fuji. Only 17% is habitable.
Since we both do not have enough mineral resources, we have to focus on human resource development as the only resource. Hence, we are enthusiastic about education. Lesotho's literacy rate is 82%, and primary school attendance rate is 69%, which makes it one of the leading education-oriented countries in Sub-Sahara Africa. The primary school attendance rate dropped from 75% of early 90s to 69% in 99, but thanks to the free primary education policy started in January 2001, I am told that it rose above 70%.
Japan is also known as one of the most education-oriented countries in the world. It was in 1868 that the Basotho nation became a British protectorate in order to protect the country from the threat of inland trekking by the Boers, thus the Protectorate of Basotholand became known to the world. This very same year marked Japan's Meiji Restoration when we opened up our country after three centuries of the "closed-door" policy and started the modernization process. Modern education in Japan started at this time from scratch. Primary school attendance was a mere 28% when our modern education system was introduced, and there were no universities in the Western sense until the University of Tokyo was established in 1877. 130 years later, we have one of the highest education standards in the world. Not only is our compulsory education attendance almost 100%; senior high school attendance is 96%, and university attendance 49%. In 2000, the OECD conducted comparative tests for 15 year olds in 32 countries (its member states and others). Japan came first in mathematics, and second in natural science (although it came only eighth in reading ability).
Why were we able to achieve this highest standard from scratch within just 130 years? What was the role that education played when Japan emerged by way of modernization from a developing country into the world's second largest economy? Today, as I am speaking at the Teacher Training College, I would like to talk about the topic: "Japan's Modernization and the role of Education", while touching upon how our focus on education reflected on our development aid policy.
As I mentioned, Japan started its first step towards modernization with the Meiji Restoration in 1868. At that time, Western powers were penetrating into Asia in the form of colonization and settlements. The new Meiji government had this strong fear that if Japan did not hurry with modernization, Japan would also be unable to resist foreign powers' aggression. It might be similar to how Lesotho felt about opening up and becoming a British protectorate in light of the influx of Boer trekkers at that time.
What our new government recognized as the key to modernization was the propagation of compulsory primary education for our citizens, in order to raise the standard of the populace's capabilities. In current terms, they adopted "Education for All" as a national policy under a centralized system. Specifically, it introduced four-year compulsory education as part of the new education system in 1872. It was extended to 6 years in 1907.
As far as our primary education attendance rate is concerned, it was only 28% when compulsory education was introduced in 1872. Then it rose to 50% in 1891, 60% in 1895, and 70% in 1899, 80% in 1901, and 90% in 1903, after 30 years of effort. In other words, we achieved a near complete implementation of compulsory education from 28% to 90% in 30 years, raising the rate 10% every three or four years.
At first, the government encountered strong resistance from parents who did not want to send their children to school, because those children were a valuable part of the labour force in agricultural areas. Therefore, police officers even occasionally visited households to force the parents to send their children to school. The Meiji government spent 18% of the entire budget allocated to the Education Ministry to dispatch students to the Western world to study advanced systems and technologies, and to invite "foreign experts" from the West to contribute to Japan's modernization. This invitation policy was conducted mostly between 1870 and 1885, inviting from three- to five hundred experts every year. The fields of these experts varied, but about one third were in the academic and education fields. The salary for these foreign experts was generally high, and some of them earned 30% more than a Prime Minister did. At its establishment, two thirds of the professors at the University of Tokyo were foreigners, and one third of its budget was allotted to their salaries.
In this way, Japan made efforts to advance modern education; especially compulsory primary school based education. Behind this rapid achievement of primary education was the fact that the propagation of education was already evident during the Tokugawa (Edo) Era before the Restoration. The 300 feudal domains (the so-called "Han") which supported the Tokugawa Shogunate system had "domain schools" to educate their elites. Also, at the more general populace level, they had private schools called "Terakoya" (temple schools), which had generally about 50 students and one teacher, where they taught how to read, write and calculate with the Japanese abacus. The number of Terakoyas increased rapidly in late Tokugawa Era (19th century) and reached around 16,000 at the beginning of the Meiji Era. There were also many local schools, which fell between two categories: 'domain schools' and the Terakoyas. Studies show that through these schools, Japan had gained one of the highest literacy rates in the world by the end of the Tokugawa Era. Thus, the already existing framework served as a foundation for the modern education system. For instance, the University of Tokyo was based on the official Medical School and Western Science School, and likewise many primary schools were developed from Terakoyas.
The Samurai class of the Tokugawa era was transformed into the 'Shizoku' class after the Meiji Restoration, and they made a great contribution towards the modernization of education. You might associate Samurai with warriors, but they were more like bureaucrats or academics, because the 300 years of Tokugawa rule marked a uniquely peaceful 300-year era without even a civil war. That is very rare in world history. This Samurai class, which constituted 2% of the population, accounted for 81% of the University of Tokyo students, and 73% of middle school teachers at the beginning of the Meiji era.
The primary school attendance rate reached 90% in 1903, and 98.8% for males and 97.6% for females in 1912. We could say that the roll-out of compulsory education in Japan was thus accomplished. Our next target was the enrichment of higher education. Coincidentally, the employment demand for graduates of higher education, especially maths and science students, rose because of industrialization after World War I. After 1910, the number of universities increased from 3 to 46, high schools from 8 to 32, and vocational schools from 60 to 111 in just 20 years. As a result, higher education graduates increased from 8 thousand to 36 thousand, a more than four-fold advance during this period.
After that, although Japan went into a dark era of militaristic education, the adoption of American style education after World War II gave a definitive touch to the spread of higher education. Taking a look at the half century between 1955 and 2000, the ratio of those entering high schools rose from 52% to 96%, and those entering universities from 10% to 49%. Consequently, the ratio of university entrance (full time) became the second highest in the world after the UK (58%) and above the US (46%).
In this way, the spread of higher education supported industrialization after W.W.I, as well as the rapid economic growth of the 1960s after W.W.II . Dr. Hamao, President of the Tokyo Imperial University, said an interesting thing; "In our country, it was not that industries and factories developed first, followed by the establishment of technical schools, but that technical schools were first established to produce graduates, whose task it was to inaugurate and develop industries and factories. The progress of industrialization in the 1910s was not possible without the advanced investment in education which preceded it. Moreover, the rapid economic recovery after W.W.II could not have been hoped for had it not been for the drastic expansion of higher educational institutions before that."
In the background behind the rapid modernization of education, one can point out national characteristics of enthusiasm towards education that took a firm hold on the Japanese people such a long time ago. From ancient times, the prime importation item of Japan was books. The Japanese scholars who accompanied envoys on fleets dispatched to the Tang Dynasty in China between the 7th century and the 9th century, were the first major group of students sent abroad, and the students that went to China increased in numbers especially after the massive mining of gold dust in the Oshu region in 749. They bought books, such as Buddhist scriptures, with gold dust and brought the books back to Japan. A famous monk, "Kukai", was sent to China with an order to study there for 20 years. However, he used up the 20 years worth of gold dust in just 2 years and returned home, buying large volumes of Buddhist scriptures, images and paintings.
In the 15th century, trade with Korea and the Ming Dynasty flourished, and Japan mainly traded copper for Korean Buddhist sutras, and books and paintings with Ming China. This process, the trading of precious gold and copper for books, illustrates the archetype of the Japanese passion for absorbing knowledge.
At the G8 Summit in Genoa, Prime Minister Koizumi introduced the story of "One Hundred Sacks of Rice" to other G8 leaders, and it became something of a topic of conversation. When I met President Mbeki, he thanked us, saying that the English translation of the book that he had asked Mr. Koizumi for had indeed arrived. Since you are the students of a training university for teachers, I would like to give you an outline of the story.
Around the time of the Meiji Restoration, a civil war called the "Boshin War" occurred in Japan between the new Imperial Government and followers of the former Tokugawa Shogunate. Nagaoka domain, a small feudal domain (currently part of Niigata Prefecture), joined the Tokugawa side, and was defeated. As a result, the city was reduced to a burnt wasteland, and the populace was eking out a miserable subsistence in poverty, with the domain's allotment of funds being cut to a third of what it had been. The neighbouring Mineyama domain sent a hundred sacks of rice out of sympathy. Samurais of Nagaoka naturally expected the distribution of the rice. But Torasaburo Kobayashi, a grand counsellor of the domain, decided not to distribute the rice but to sell the rice and spend the money therefrom to found "Kokkan (National and Chinese studies) school."
Torasaburo tells the Samurais who angrily demand the rice, "Once the rice is eaten, what is left afterwards? Whether a country rises or falls, whether a town flourishes or decays, the answer lies in every instance with the people. I want to build a school and give the children an education. These hundred sacks are now no more than one hundred sacks, but in years to come they will grow to ten thousand sacks, to a million sacks, and then so many they cannot be counted."* (English translation by Dr. Donald KEENE)
This true story became popularly known after the writer Yuzo Yamamoto started wondering why a small city like Nagaoka had produced so many leaders in modern Japan, and discovered the fact of the foundation of the Kokkan school as the major reason therefor, which he made into a theatre play script.
During the process of modernization after the Meiji Restoration, Japan adopted the system of developing human resources based on the merit of peoples' education rather than on their family status, class, or income level. Until the end of the Tokugawa Era, we had a rigid class system called "Shi, No, Ko, Sho" (samurai, farmers, manufacturers, merchants), but after the Meiji Era, promotion was determined by academic criteria, and "Shizoku" (the former Samurai class) declined dramatically, after having played their important transitional role. This system of social promotion by way of examinations accelerated the national passion for education.
At last year's UNESCO seminar, I talked about development. I pointed out three things: 1) Each donor introduces various development strategies, but they are all hypothetical, 2) A donor government cannot replace that of a recipient country in the administration and implementation of a development plan. 3) Each donor's aid policy is a reflection of its historical experience. In short, it is crucial that recipients maintain ownership of their development, and make wise decisions themselves. As a matter of fact, Japan's aid policy is a product of our own history of development. And from the experience I have just mentioned, you can easily understand that education, or "human building" in a broader sense, is the central focus of our aid policy.
In 2000, Japan's ODA allocation in the education field was about $890 million. That accounts for 9.5% of total bilateral ODA of $9.4 billion. Most of our ODA to education is in the form of grant assistance, and the total depends greatly on whether ODA (Yen) Loans are added or not. In 1999, a $400 Million ODA Loan was added, so the total sum of the ODA allocation to education was $1.2 billion, and its share of bilateral ODA ($10.5 billion) was 11.4%. On average, although it varies each year, education accounts for about 10% of Japan's ODA.
When it comes to our assistance to Africa in particular, we place special emphasis on education. At the TICAD II (Second Tokyo International Conference on African Development) in 1998, Japan pledged about 90 billion Yen of Grant Aid Assistance in the three areas of education, health, and water supply. We have been keeping our promises by achieving the allocation of 12.8 billion Yen to education in the first two years (up to January 2001).
Grant Aid Assistance forms the central part of our assistance to education, and Africa (8.17 billion Yen) took up 42% of the total sum of 19.45 billion Yen in 1999. This is one example of how much emphasis our Government puts on Africa in education assistance. The main focus of our education assistance is the building of primary and middle school classrooms. We conducted 90 projects (including grass roots assistance programmes) in 32 countries in Sub-Sahara Africa in this category in 1999. In Africa, we prepared classrooms for 310,000 children in primary and middle schools in the 4 years between 1997 and 2000 through General Grant Assistance. Many more children benefited though, because this number excludes our Grass Roots Assistance Programme.
We commenced our assistance to Lesotho in 1982. It was initially mostly food assistance, but cooperation in education started in 1995, and the sum of grant assistance in education has reached about 1.4 billion yen. This represents about 30% of all grant assistance, and except for food production and an increase in food production assistance, we have put 94% of our grant assistance into education. Especially in Lesotho, we are utilizing our grass roots assistance programme to build classrooms for primary and middle schools, already resulting in 100 classrooms.
The experimental building of the National Teacher Training College in Maseru was completed by way of a grant loan for 570 million yen, and the completion ceremony was conducted in the presence of His Excellency Prime Minister Mosisili. This cooperation is a symbol of the high ideal Lesotho pursues in advancing education, and our policy to value cooperation in the field of education.