Education system : Japan vs other countries

[Maciamo]

At all of the schools I teach, the same texts are used. I have asked why, and I was told by a Japanese teacher that all schools have to use texts assigned by the Ministry of Education in Tokyo. This sounded like BS at the time, but now I'm not so sure.
Any thoughts?

That is exactly what I have heard and read (many times) so it must be true.

I've suggested that the classes be split based on ability rather than grade level, but I was shot down pretty fast. Again, all the explaination I recieved was mumbling about how this is the way it has to be, schools can't decide, etc.

I understand that Japanese schools don't divide classes by abilities because that is also the way it was in my schools in Europe - and gaps were indeed huge, making the brighest students bored to death or leaving the slow ones well-behind depending on the speed adopted by the teacher. Usually the class' difficulty depended only on the teacher's personality, with some hard ones that were feared by most and some easy ones that were longed by the lazy average.

I would also have preferred a division by ability, esp. that we had about 8 classes (of about 30 students) per grade in secondary school. At least we were divided by options. One class for the "Latin-Maths", one for the "Latin-Greek", one for the "Maths-Science", one for the "Science-Modern Languages", etc. That makes it more difficult to divide, except for common subjects like geography, history, literature, etc.

[RockLee]

In other words, the reason why Japanese students have to study so hard for the "juuken" is not because it is that hard, but because they didn't know their real ability due to the lack of real eliminatory exams before that. As a results, many simply do not have the necessary knowledge and instead of "doubling" a normal school year like in Europe, they end up becoming "rounin" and study one or two more years by themselves or at a "yobiko" (preparatory school) to be able to enter university.

I think this is the mayor problem in Japan, you just learn "little" so to speak, and for entrance at a university the Japanese have to LEARN(not memorize like they did before) and that's something they never really learned so they will go completely COOCKOO !!

[Ewok85]

I understand that Japanese schools don't divide classes by abilities because that is also the way it was in my schools in Europe - and gaps were indeed huge, making the brighest students bored to death or leaving the slow ones well-behind depending on the speed adopted by the teacher. Usually the class' difficulty depended only on the teacher's personality, with some hard ones that were feared by most and some easy ones that were longed by the lazy average.

I would also have preferred a division by ability, esp. that we had about 8 classes (of about 30 students) per grade in secondary school. At least we were divided by options. One class for the "Latin-Maths", one for the "Latin-Greek", one for the "Maths-Science", one for the "Science-Modern Languages", etc. That makes it more difficult to divide, except for common subjects like geography, history, literature, etc.

Ahah! I dunno if it was just my school but it was the opposite. Classes were by ability, 1 being top. Classes were grouped into topics (language, sciences, arts). They had different teachers for each topic (teaching their specialised topic). The kids stayed in the same class with the same people (cept for PE where they would split boys/girls).

Its very annoying how little power schools and teachers hold on the education of their students. The Ministry of Education decides what books, the curriculum etc for the whole country. I do remember reading that some regions are able to change this if they wish.

I wouldn't mind 'streaming' (grouping classes by ability) in Australia. It works fine in Europe, would be good here too.