Demography and Stratification

The postwar Japanese education system is patterned on the American model. At the age of six, children enter primary school, which has six grades. They then proceed to middle school, which comprises three years; completing it is mandatory. Some 98 percent of those who complete compulsory education then progress to three-year high school. Thus, nearly all students complete twelve years of schooling, making high school education virtually semi-mandatory. An overwhelming majority of government schools are coeducational, but some private schools are single sex.

Beyond this level, four-year universities and two-year junior colleges operate as institutions of higher education. Nationally, about 47.4 percent of fresh high school graduates proceed to four-year universities. The proportion of students enrolling in tertiary institutions has steadily increased, and those who possess university degrees amount to 19.9 percent of the entire population. Outside the sphere of universities and junior colleges, a large number of unregulated, private commercial schools called senmon gakkō (special vocational schools) run vocation-oriented courses for those who have completed high school but who are unable or unwilling to attend universities and colleges. Some full-time university students are ‘double-schooled’ in these vocational schools to strengthen their technical skills and qualifications. As Table 5.1 shows, Japanese who are university educated are a minority; the vast majority of Japanese have had little to do with university life.