Despite an improved economy, Japan is suffering a crisis of confidence these days about its ability to compete with its emerging Asian rivals, China and India.

One result has been a growing craze for Indian education in this fad-obsessed nation.
The Indian boomlet reflects the insecurity many Japanese feel about schools in their country, facilities that once turned out students who consistently ranked at the top of international tests.

But now many are looking for lessons from India, a country seen by many in Japan as the world’s ascendant education superpower. (…)

The thought of viewing another Asian country as a model in education, or almost anything else, would have been unheard of a few years ago, education experts and historians say.

Much of Japan has long looked down on the rest of Asia, priding itself on being the most advanced country in the region. Indeed, Japan has dominated the continent for more than a century, first as an imperial power and more recently as the first Asian economy to achieve Western levels of development.

But in recent years, Japan has grown increasingly insecure, gripped by fear that it was being overshadowed by India and China, which were rapidly gaining in economic weight and sophistication. The government in Tokyo has tried to preserve the Japanese technological lead and strengthen its military. But the Japanese have been forced to shed a traditional indifference to their neighbors in the region.

Suddenly, Japan is, grudgingly, starting to show a new sense of respect.

“Until now, Japanese saw China and India as backward and poor,” said Yoshinori Murai, a professor of Asian cultures at Sophia University in Tokyo. “As Japan loses confidence in itself, its attitudes toward Asia are changing. It has started seeing India and China as nations with something to offer.”

In education, Japanese respect has grown in seemingly direct proportion to how far its performance has slipped below its Asian rivals on international tests.

Last month, a cry of alarm greeted the announcement by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that in an international survey of math skills, Japan had fallen from first place in 2000 to 10th place, behind Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea. From second in science in 2000, Japan dropped to sixth place. (…)

Most annoying for many Japanese is that the aspects of Indian education they now praise are similar to those that once made Japan famous for its work ethic and discipline: learning more at an earlier age, a heavier reliance on rote memorization and cramming, and a stronger focus on the basics, particularly in math and science.

Source: The Asian Pacific Post, Canada
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