Education system : Japan vs other countries

[Kama]

When I say Europe, it usually means old EU members (in the same way as "America" usually means the USA, not the continent). Poland has just joined the EU and so the education system has not yet have time to adapt to EU standards (or anyway that won't affect you as you have already finished school).

Sometimes I feel that Eastern European countries have chosen to follow a more American-style consumerist approach to capitalism after 1990. Is that the New Europe, Old Europe divide they were talking about ?

Maciamo, so don't talk about Europe when you have few countries on mind. It's misleading.
I don't know about any diversity between New Europe and Old Europe. These terms are just stupid-western-europe-countries-made. Damn, we have a 1000 of years of national history, so we are not the NEW Europe. And being a democratic country for shortert/longer time isn'a any criteria for being an European country. Poland is also part of Europe, as well as Russia, Lithuania and some other countries. Remember about this ALWAYS when you are talking about Europe.

Polish education system is being adapted to EU for many years, I suppose about 10 years now. I rember that in secondary school there was a chance (scholarship) to go to Great Britain and make a matriculation exam there.

Also, Erasmus and etc. (I don't remeber other names) are operating in Poland for years. Even years before joining EU we had the point system at universities compatibile with that in EU countries.

[TenMonGaKuSha]

I believe that education across Europe differs a little bit. I live in Serbia which is not part of EU (and I'm not sure if it will be soon) and I finished elementary and high school here. Now, I'm on the 3rd year of studying at the university of natural sciences, astronomy and astrophysics.

I am not sure how difficult passing through grades is all over the world but I think that our education (in Serbia) is pretty strong. We don't have many graduated students put that's because of the criteria at universities.
In elementary and high school we have tests all the time during school days. We have about 13 subjects per year in high school and exams about 8 times from each subject during a year. For example, in physics we have 4 written tests (like 4-5 problems which you have to solve) and 4 theoretical exams. We don't have tests with cheking the wright answer... That's too easy. We don't have exams for finishing/graduating school, but we do have exams for entering high school and university.

The exams for high schools are the same for almost every school and they're from the Serbian language and mathematics. The exams for entering the university, of course, vary a lot and they are not easy at all! However, to enter the faculty of physics in my town (the 2nd largest in Serbia) is not hard because a small number of people want it )
Anyway, when a person like me enters physics/astrophysics/astronomy or something like that, you need 4 years to graduate and you have about 35-40 exams. Most of them are theoretical and experimental, so a student have to work really hard to pass all that.

Anyway, our system is half-synchronized with European (EU) Bologne declaration so a student can go over there (to EU) and continue his studying very easy. That's good.

I'm not sure how does it work in Japan.
If you're wright about their low-education system in elementary and high schools, what kind of criterium do they have at universities? How about post graduated studies? That's what I'm interested in.

[Maciamo]

I don't know about any diversity between New Europe and Old Europe. These terms are just stupid-western-europe-countries-made.

In fact they were made by the Bush administration to criticize "Old Europe" for not supporting their Iraq War. And btwm the UK and Spain are also New Europe, so it's really only political. I was just being sarcastic here.