Period (Japan)

        In present days, there are 3 periods in Japan; from April to July as first semester, from September to December as second semester, and from January to March as third semester, and long vacations are set between each semesters, called “Summer vacation”, ”Winter vacation”, and “Spring vacation.” It’s the typical period in Japan, but these days, it tends to be changed into 2 periods, spring semester from April to July and autumn semester from September to March because of the falling of students’ school record, and the movement has been generally spread among some Japanese schools.

        Comparing to German one, most vacations and the number of class that students have to take are totally decided by Fundamental Act of Education. Therefore, there is little difference.

        The following time chart shows you the period of Japanese education briefly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

         One of Japanese interesting point is between Middle school and High school. Though secondary education is from Middle school to High school, but the compulsory education is finished at the end of Middle school. After Middle school, students have to choose high school where they want to go or get a job. After graduating from high school, some student go to university and others get a job.

Kinds of school (Japan)

Nursery, Kindergarten

 

Some feature is similar with German one. Some two income family who can’t afford to raise their takes them Nursery because of the economic problem, no time enough to take care of. Children take basic things, how to write, read, count, and so on. Some Kindergarten try to have them study easy English, so it may be seen that studying English in young age gets spread.

 

Elementary school, Lower secondary school

The foundation of Japanese educational system is nine-year compulsory education and it consists of a six-year elementary school, and a three-year lower secondary school (also called “Junior high school”, hereinafter referred to as JHS). Basically, all children take primary education for 6 years in an elementary school, and higher education for 3 years in a JHS.

When they graduate from elementary school, some of them go to other JHS to take much higher education for their future. Almost 100% of Japanese students complete compulsory education. After graduating from JHS, 96.4% of them go to Upper secondary school (also called “High school”) in 2005.

Upper secondary school (High school)

 

Students can study higher and professional education, for 3 years in a standard school, and for 5 years in a higher professional school. Different from Germany, there is no qualification like Abitur, so they can take an entrance exam of Univ.; Center-exam, admission on recommendation at the last of final grade. Center-exam is a Japanese-style exam and measures student’s scholastic ability to enter a Univ. where he/she wants to.

Period －Japan-

Periods (Japan):

In present days, there are 3 periods in Japan; from April to July as first semester, from September to December as second semester, and from January to March as third semester, and long vacations are set between each semesters, called “Summer vacation”, ”Winter vacation”, and “Spring vacation.” It’s the typical period in Japan, but these days, it tends to be changed into 2 periods, spring semester from April to July and autumn semester from September to March because of the falling of students’ school record, and the movement has been generally spread among some Japanese schools.

 

Comparing to German one, most vacations and the number of class that students have to take are totally decided by Fundamental Act of Education. Therefore, there is little difference.

Body -Computer Education 2.1-

Germany

According to a reference, the number of Information and communication technology (ICT) software and hardware has increased over 10 years ago, but these technologies are not percolating through recent school life. Actually, ICT users per school were very small and about 10% of staff member per school used Internet for instructional purpose in 1998. In spite of the high investment of ICT and some support programs for school staff, the achievement of student was lower rank among other countries.In 2006, an ICT survey conducted by Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF means Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany) showed us that the rate of using computers had increased for education purposes in many subjects, professional applications, and teacher’s tasks. Then I show you some charts about information of the survey.

(The charts are the same as those of the old post.)

The chart above, based on that survey, show us that about half of primary students use computers for Mother tongue, mathematics and a study group, and around 30% of them do Internet for society, science, and a group work. We can see that schools tend to use them as a tool of basic classes and a group study. In Secondary school, about three-quarter of students do in an Informatics class and the percentage rise in Vocational school, 83%. According to this, the purpose of using computers gets more professional and many schools have aims to have them to take a computer education in some academics. “Informatics” itself may be seen simple, but it has many varieties of areas, genome informatics, legal informatics, musical informatics, medical informatics, for example. From these, this will say a professional training at an early age and a high prize in Germany.

The tendency is seen from the bottom-left chart. It shows the rate of using computers outside a class in 2008. Although the rate at Primary school shows one out of three students using, the rate of Secondary school is two in three students, in addition, Vocational school is four out of five students, and the rate is clearly increasing. It seems that the more age is rising, the more necessary computers get in their lives because it is efficient for their works. The Bottom-middle one also proves the expansion of computer using. Preparing between in 1998 and in 2006, the figures are rapidly going up in both men and women.

…,

At last, why do many students start to use computer for their study, especially Informatics after Primary school? The reason lies on a historical German education system

Why are computers related with Informatics?

It is said that “Berufsbildung” which is a law of the compulsory of job training was the beginning of an improvement of German job system in student’s life in 1969, and after executing, vocations have been associated with school educations as a process of job until today. In German school, all students have 12 years compulsory education, and when they finish the first 4 years in Primary school, they can choose a course of job training (6 years or more) if they want. The reason why they can do so from a young age is in a German policy of employment decision. A reference says that it is very important for German people to have qualification requirements and complete training to get a job. An academic record is a just process to go to the step.
In such policy, present Informatics has many kinds of disciplines and they are in the process of developing today. The more complex the contents get, we need wiser ways and useful tools. Then, one way of them is using convenient applications installed in a computer, for example, Excel for figuring and arranging economic data, special equipments for studying a new type virus and design tools for build a building. Helping us well, but some of them also require us advanced techniques to use them effectively and they are surely necessary for our future, so they learn in such a special school.

I’ll write about “Dual-system” which is other popular policy for German vocational education.

References 01

Plomp, Tieerd, E.Anderson, Ronald, & Law, Nancy. (2009). Cross-National Information and Communication Technology Policies and Practices in Education Research in Educational Policy Series. IAP.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

寺田, 盛紀. (2000). ドイツの職業教育・キャリア教育. Okayama, Japan: Osaka Kyoiku Syuppan.

Body -Computer education 2-

We use computers for working, studying, playing, and chatting as a useful and essential tool in our life,but we don’t know what kind of education a country takes and what the purpose of their using computers is. In some country, most people perhaps have used them many times since they were young, or some people use them in some specific time in other countries.

Then, I have two noteworthy points, one is the process to learn function of computers and another is what kind of class people use computer at school. The former reason is that there is no official curriculum in the world, so each country has its own curriculum. The latter one is to find out the main role of computers in each country. Now, I show you about German one and Japanese one.

Germany

According to a reference, the number of Information and communication technology (ICT) software and hardware has increased over 10 years ago, but these technologies are not percolating through recent school life. Actually, ICT users per school were very small and about 10% of staff member per school used Internet for instructional purpose in 1998. In spite of the high investment of ICT and some support programs for school staff, the achievement of student was lower rank among other countries.

*ICT : Information and communication technolog

In 2006, an ICT survey conducted by the German Education Ministry ( Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, hereafter BMBF) showed us that the rate of using computers had increased for education purposes in many subjects, professional applications, and teacher’s tasks.

Then I show you some charts about information of the survey.

The chart above, based on that survey, show us that about half of primary students use computers for Mother tongue, mathematics and a study group, and around 30% of them do for society, science and internet.

Next,

…,

At last,

From these information, ~~~~~.

Body -Computer education-

          We use computers on working, studying, playing, and chatting as a useful and essential tool in our life, but we don’t know what kind of education a country takes and what the purpose of their using computers is. In some country, most people perhaps have used them many times since they were young, or some people use them in some specific time in other countries.

          Then, I have two noteworthy points, one is the process to learn function of computers and another is what kind of class people use computer at school. The former reason is that there is no official curriculum in the world, so each country has its own curriculum. The latter one is to find out the main role of computers in each country. Now, I show you about German one and Japanese one.

          Germany According to a reference, the number of ICT (Information and communication technology) software and hardware has increased over 10 years ago, but these technologies are not percolating through everyday school life. Actually, ICT users per school were very small and about 10% of staff member per school used Internet for instructional purpose in 1998. In spite of the high investment of ICT and some support programs for school staff, the achievement of student was lower rank among other countries.

 

(I will write about the detail and the case of students)

Kinds of German school and the number of students

          On studying, as you can see that all of countries have schools and most children go to, school is an essential part in our lives. As the time passes, we have got new views in education and other kinds of school have been established. Then, I researched the kinds of school and how many students go to each school. I found a useful website (Here) and made this following chart. This chart shows us the kinds of German school and the number of students.

 

I’m sorry I don’t know how to upload an illustration.

Kinds of school (Before the secondary school) (Germany)

Nursery, Kindergarten

          In Germany, it is not burden for the German to have children enter Nursery and Kindergarten, but many families have their children go to Kindergarten. The class consists of children who are 4 to 6 years old, so elder children teach and take care of younger.

Grundschule (elementary/ primary school)

          Almost all of children go to Grundschule for 4 years. You may think that it is a little shorter for them, but they have to study some basic learning in the period. Some states make them go for 6 years, for example Berlin and Brandenburg.

          State schools are free of charge, so many children attend there in their neighborhood. Today, the parents, especially who are rich, tend to have them go to better schools. Once their children reach the age, middle-class and working-class families move away from lower-class areas.

          When children become 5 grade students, all schools (except Berlin and Brandenburg) have an orientation phase (called Orientierunsstufe). Then, children and their parents have to decide which secondary school they should enter. The key to decide is based on scholastic achievements in the main subjects (mathematics, foreign language, etc) and the family’s ideas. The cases of Berlin and Brandenburg, the term is already in the last 2 years of Grundschule.

My sotsuron -Body part2-

Periods (Germany):

          Generally, there are 2 periods in autumn and spring. Autumn term starts on August 1 to January 31, and spring term on February 1 to July 31.

          Speaking of school, I’m sure that almost all of children are looking forward to spending summer vacation. In addition, German school has autumn vacation too. Then, some of you think that summer vacation will start at the same time in all states, but it is false. As you can tell, the beginning is different in each state: each state has its own schedule.

          Next, almost all of children must take education during a long term the entire world and it depends on countries.

          In the first 4 years, children go to primary school (according to Rules, some state makes them go for 6 years), and they go to secondary school for some year that is set by the school.

Periods (Japan):

          On the other hand, many Japanese schools have 3 semesters and long vacations between a semester and the next semester. The school in Japan starts in April 1 and finish in March 31 because the period has been designated by School Education law. However, some school gradually starts 2-semesters system; spring term and autumn term. The reason why they do that is said to increase time for students to study more and have teachers to communicate with students more actively. According to the activity, first semester ends in the beginning of October and second semester starts in the middle of October.

          After graduating from junior high school, children have an opportunity to get a job or to enter a high school, but almost all of them enter a high school for at least 3 years. Then about 55% (2009) of them go to a university, junior college, specialized training college, and other facilities to be what they hope.