Japan's College Entrance Examination Competition In The Era Of 100% Enrollment

Japan takes its membership in countries which boasts their advanced education. In Japan, national education, an important subject and problem, is closely watched in all social sectors. The period since Meiji Restoration through the present has witnessed three major changes of Japan education, and the education with Japanese characteristics has been formed because of its continuous and rapid development. Being a great success, meanwhile, this kind of education possesses some intractable problems. In a sense, exam war, a Japanese formulation, is a nasty problem. This exam war is a kind of phenomenon. Large number of entrance students and small number of winners cause a fierce competition, which brings positive and negative effects, so the exam war can also be simply called exam competition. However, being a greatly developed society, Japan has been in the All Entry Era, namely, students can go to universities if they like, without choices. Japan has entered the era, but the exam competition is still very intense. The advent of the era does not means that the good study days of Japanese students has came, while the situation becomes more serious to the contrary. So, where are these aftermaths come from and what effects will be brought about in this case. This paper will be divided into three parts to discuss the status quo under the age of fierce test competition in Japan. The first part, from the background of whole era, introduces the present situation of the All Entry Era, including the present statuses of developments of Japanese society and education The second part digs deeply from various aspects, and explores the cause of the fierce exam war. The value of examination here will be enlarged. The exam war of Japanese commonly refers to the university entrance examination, however, the author considers that the fierce competition in the college entrance examination will directly influence those in high school, middle school, elementary education and examination. So, in this paper, appropriate relaxation of boundaries will be carried out to expand the scope of the concept of examination. The last part, from both the positive and negative sides, objectively and justly, explores the effects of fierce competition in Japanese examination. In addition, China and Japan are both Asian countries. They are close neighbours separated only by a strip, and have contacted closely and influenced mutually since the ancient times. Concerning social development, Japan is more advanced than us. We may walk the same or a similar road of development as the one in Japan. And our country and Japan have encountered many problems in common. China attaches great importance to education, which followed with series of problems. So, the research of Japanese education is useful to the education in China in a sense. So this kind of research is meaningful.