Study On The Development Of Japanese Education And Its Role In Japan’s Economic Development

In1950s and1960s, Japan’s economy achieved rapid development, which became one of the most striking phenomena in modern world history of economic development. After defeated in World War II, Japan was in ruins, the whole nation caught in the predicament of hunger and disappointment, and the national economy in a paralyzed state. However, after only a decade, their industrial and agricultural productions returned to the prewar level. In1968, Japan exceeded former Federal Republic of Germany in GNP and became the second largest economy in the capitalist world after the US. Because of the impact of two oil shocks, the Japanese economy came down to slow growth in1975, but until the late1980s Japan remained excellent in the world economy, once known as "the world’s second economic superpower" and challenged the supremacy of U.S. economy. After the collapse of the bubble economy in the early1990s, Japan suffered an economic downturn. Although Japan’s economy saw not much improvement in the beginning of the new century and was surpassed in GDP by China in2010, Japan remained one of the most developed economies in the world with strong advantages in science and technology, talents, capital and business management.The miracle of Japanese development after WWII, especially the once high-speed economic growth, has been well known to the world. The amazing speed at which Japan’s economy recovered and developed attracted worldwide attention. Lots of scholars home and abroad began to study how Japan did it in such a short period of time. Although there is not only one answer to the question, and most people agree it is the result of combined effects of a variety of factors and conditions, the development of education is a crucial factor attributing to the rapid economic development in Japan, which has received general recognition..Japan is not only a typical representative of "the-latecomers-surpass-the-formers", but also a country that went through "the predicament after surpassing". Therefore, the experience of Japan’s economic and educational development is an important reference for developing countries to draw lessons from. China and the Japan are close neighbors separated by a narrow strip of water and have similar cultures, so Japan’s experience and lessons are much more worth us to learn from. This paper is based on the study of educational and economic development in Japan, and I hope it can provide some useful reference for China. The paper is divided into ten chapters.Chapter One:introduction. This chapter expatiates on the purpose and significance of the paper, research perspectives of the paper, status of related study home and abroad, the main content of the paper, chapter structure, innovativeness and shortcomings of the paper.Chapter Two:the basic theory of the relationship between education and economic development. This chapter goes into the theory of human recourses and the theory of education, introduces the basic theory about the relationship between educational and economic development, and summarizes the mutually reinforcing relationship of education and economy.Chapter Three:the Japanese educational policy and educational reform. This chapter discusses the educational policy and educational reform that the Japanese government implemented in various stages of economic development. In different periods of economic development, educational policy and educational reform took on different contents and focuses, but they all had close relationships with economic development in view of considerations and results. The rapid development of Japanese education made a great contribution to improving the level of national education and economic development.Chapter Four:Japan’s investment in education. First, on the basis of the introduction of the basic theory of education expense and education return, this chapter reviews the change in the rate of return on education investment. Then, from aspects of micro households and macro government, it analyzes the level of education expense in Japan.Chapter Five:the development of education in Japan. On the basis of discussing the existing education system in Japan, this chapter focuses on information-based education and international education that impel the economic development. Finally, by means of abundant data, it makes international comparisons with the development of Japanese education and analyzes the gap between Japanese education and those of other developed countries, as well as its strengths and weaknesses.Chapter Six:the problems of Japanese education. This chapter analyzes the various problems in different stages of education:pre-school education, compulsory education and advanced education.On the basis of showing the importance and urgency of solving the problem, it disserts the policies and measures that should be taken by the Japanese government.Chapter Seven:the important role of education in promoting Japan’s economic development.The importance of the Japanese education in promoting economic development is mainly reflected in the following six aspects:①Education has trained large numbers of talents, which lays a talent foundation for the development of the Japanese economy.②Education has trained abundant researchers, which lays the foundation for Japan’s scientific and technological progress.③The improvement in levels of education ensures highly efficient, high-level scientific research output.④Scientific and technological development based on education enlarges the surplus in Japan’s technology trade.⑤Education facilitates the spread and inheritance of Japanese culture and heritage, and lays the foundation for the Japanese-style management.⑤Education helps improve the quality of national people and maintain social harmony and stability.Chapter Eight:the experience of Japan in education and its promotion of economic development. The experience of the development of education in Japan is mainly reflected in nine aspects of education legislation, educational establishment of a country, education reform, investment in education, vocational education, private schools, building a lifelong learning society, information-based education, and international education. This chapter made a summary of Japan’s experience in development in these9aspects. In addition, this chapter summarizes the experience in adjusting the structure of education to promote Japan’s economic development, in aspects of adjusting the education policy to promote economic restructuring and of adjusting the content of education to promote industrial development. Finally, it concludes the experience how economic development promotes the development of education, reflected in the aspects that economic development provides necessary funds for the development of education,that economic development promotes the enrichment and completing of educational content and teaching methods, that timely adjustment according to changes in economic structure and improvement of the structure of education are necessary, and that economic development and education development promote each other.Chapter Nine:conclusions, considerations and revelations. This chapter summarizes the main conclusions of the relationship between education and economic development:① Educational development and economic development promote each other;②Japan attaches great importance to the role education plays in economic development;③Education in Japan plays an essential part in promoting economic development;④The Japanese accumulates beneficial experience in promoting educational and economic development. On account of the analysis of the relationship between educational and economic development in Japan, inspirations can be drawn for China:①We should reinforce the construction of legal system, escorting the development of education;②We should strongly advocate the idea of "establishing the nation on education" to ensure the need for talents in economic development;③We should increase education investment and improve the educational environment;④We should optimize the educational structure, and promote economic development.The innovations of this paper include the following three aspects:First, based on the recognition that education is an important factor promoting Japan’s post-war economic development, the article provides a comprehensive analysis of the important role of education in promoting economic development in Japan from six aspects. The fifth aspect that" Education facilitates the spread and inheritance of Japanese culture and heritage" and the sixth aspect that" Education helps improve the quality of national people and maintain social harmony and stability" reflect the innovativeness in academic viewpoints.Second, the article offers a systematic and comprehensive summary of the experiences of Japan in development of education, in adjustment of the structure of education to promote Japan’s economic development and in the development of economy to promote the educational development, experiences that provide inspirations and references for our country.There are three main flaws and shortcomings of this paper:First, on account of my limited knowledge in education and economic theory, insufficient data collection and superficial understanding of related issues, I meet difficulties and constraints penetrating into the topic and innovating. The paper may inevitably contain some inaccurate expressions and inappropriate conclusions.Second, in the part of international comparison, because of the difficulties in collecting and classifying the information related to education and economic development in other countries and in obtaining first-hand information and the latest data of some countries, I meet several problems conducting the comparative study, which may result in some minor deviations in conclusions.Third, Although this paper seeks to combine the existing status and developing trend of the Japanese economy to study the new topics and new directions of Japanese education, because of my weak theoretical basis of education and economic development and insufficient understanding of the new topics and new directions of global educational development, the existing analysis and discussion appear to be inadequate and require further learning and in-depth study.