EDUCATION: NYT on Japanese Envy India's Schools

UPDATED! This post has been updated with links to the reaction in the blogosphere and NYT letters to the editor.

Original post, from Jan. 2, 2008...

Below the fold on the front page of today's New York Times, Martin Fackler writes about how the Japanese, who are getting increasingly insecure about their schools, are looking for lessons from India, the country which he says is considered as the world's ascendant education superpower.

The story features a kindergarten school founded by an Indian woman, where 2-year-olds count to 20, three-year-olds use computers and five-year-olds writes essays in English.

Bookstores are filled with titles like “Extreme Indian Arithmetic Drills” and “The Unknown Secrets of the Indians.” Newspapers carry reports of Indian children memorizing multiplication tables far beyond nine times nine, the standard for young elementary students in Japan.

And Japan’s few Indian international schools are reporting a surge in applications from Japanese families.

At the Little Angels English Academy & International Kindergarten, the textbooks are from India, most of the teachers are South Asian, and classroom posters depict animals out of Indian tales. The kindergarten students even color maps of India in the green and saffron of its flag.

It is quite an interesting that the Japanese learn to color an Indian flag given that most of the students in this school are Japanese. Only one out of 45 is an Indian.

Fackler puts it in a rather humorous way when he writes that grudgingly, Japan is starting to respect its neighbors.

“Until now, Japanese saw China and India as backwards and poor,” said Yoshinori Murai, a professor of Asian cultures at Sophia University in Tokyo. “As Japan loses confidence in itself, its attitudes toward Asia are changing. It has started seeing India and China as nations with something to offer.”

Little Angels School in Japan was started by Jeevarani Angelina, a former Chennai-based oil company executive, after she moved to Japan in 1990.

The article ends with a Japanese parent praising the Indian education system.

“My son’s level is higher than those of other Japanese children the same age,” said Eiko  Kikutake, whose son Hayato, 5, attends Little Angels. “Indian education is really amazing! This wouldn’t have been possible at a Japanese kindergarten.”

What do your think? Please post some of your thoughts below.

UPDATE: Over at SepiaMutiny, Professor Amardeep Singh is dubious about this trend:

There’s a long tradition of “Dubious Trend Line” (DBL) stories in the New York Times, and today’s article on how Japanese parents have suddenly become interested in the Indian educational system seems to more or less fit the patter.
<snip>
If a Dubious Trend Line journalist goes to broad geopolitical generalizations when trying to explain a much more specific cultural event, they’re likely grasping at straws.

In general, I don’t disagree that a focus on the fundamentals might be useful in the early years (and I have my doubts about the Montessori method), but there’s nothing especially “Indian” about that, is there? Isn’t the memorization simply a hold-over from the old British educational model? Overall, the article does little to convince me that this is anything other than a mini-fad — if that.
  Read 70+ comments as well.

UPDATE: Two letters to the NYT were published on Sunday, Jan. 6, 2008.

One is a letter from Harvard education professor Howard Gardner:

I was fascinated to read that Japan is now imitating education in India but dismayed to learn what is being imitated: memorization, cramming and attempting to teach anything and everything at ever earlier ages (“Losing an Edge, Japanese Envy India’s Schools,” front page, Jan. 2).

What Japan should be pondering are India’s lessons from the period of being a British colony and from the struggle against British hegemony.

These include surviving, sometimes thriving, in a pluralistic world; genuine democracy (warts and all); heated debate; a liberal arts education; the importance of play and irreverence; posing tough questions; the individual’s willingness to struggle against mentors; and the nation’s capacity to rebel against an overly powerful national model elsewhere, be it British or American.

Here is the second letter, from a woman named Susan L. Schwartz:

Having spent six weeks last summer on a Fulbright investigating what United States educators can learn from the Indian system, I find it ironic that some Japanese want to emulate the Indian system, which favors rote learning.

Similarities exist in both countries: an emphasis on passing exams as the requirement to enter universities; the hours of homework students must complete; the respect given teachers; and the support provided by parents.

But there is now a recognition in India that curriculums must include more application, not just memorization, and that all students, not just those who can afford it and have no special needs, must be educated.

In fact, some Indian educators point to the American system as a model, because it fosters creativity, educates all children regardless of background and enables everyone who wants to to attend college.

Post your comments below.

Comments

[TraveLog]

its too early to blow trumpet about India being the next education power. Lets fix our primary education system first so that every kid gets an opportunity to learn and then start offering lessons to others..

[Ravi]

Hi,
It's nothing special about it, if we consider our true potential. From centuries India is the seat of knowledge and wisdom of world. Only British rule faded it for a while. Now we are again back to the field. This is just one such instance. Read my article about this topic on http://vidya.ravisblognet.com

With Regards,
Ravi
-----------------------------------------------------------
www.ravisblognet.com

http://vidya.ravisblognet.com
http://technology.ravisblognet.com
http://athma.ravisblognet.com

[Product of The Indian Education System]

I thank the Indian Education system for making me smarter than someone of an equivalent level from most other countries. But this is the same system that crushes wills and souls and drives people to despair, it's full of so much hypocrisy.
The only reason we suceed is by competing with others and ourselves ever since the very beginning.
You don't need a South Asian education to do that, and
Ravi.

Shove it.
Maybe what you say will be worth listening to once every indian citizen can claim to have a basic degree of knowledge.

[panditjugalkishoreshastri]

to be wise you don't need education. That's why IITians aren't wise just like MITians and HARVARDians. And, being wise is the shortest distance to wisdom, which is a composite of knowledge and experience. knowledge is observation that repeats itself. and experience is a miscellaneous collection of mistakes. IITians just like Harvardians and MITians don't make enough mistakes because they don't try the untried. That's why it will be a few generations more before we will see Indian innovation. Until such time let's be grateful that HONDA or Toyota, hitherto a darling of management schools, is/are introducing WIPRO handbook of management into their production curriculum. i don't think an IITian verifies why there are sympathetic strings under the frets of a sitar or why one string produces frequency resonance in other strings by actually playing an instrument.

at one time 90% of the school budgets in india were devoted to urban schools. And 90% of the schools were in the villages. of course, these included schools conducted under the shade of a tree. late, great, napoleon-sized Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri was a product of one such school from a village very close to the tree where Gautam Buddha was enlighened.

moral: indians are too educated for their intelligence to enjoy a physical life. let them embrace intelligence and free themselves of their education. Education is just a meal ticket. It doesn't save you from being mentally unemployed. Very few educated people have hobbies because all they think of is food, samosa, pakora, curd rice and dosa.

[Lisa Tsering]

I hope that anyone willing to place the Indian school system on a pedestal sees Aamir Khan's new film, "Taare Zameen Par," a moving and powerful story of a young Mumbai boy with dyslexia.
This wonderful film shows the dark side of India's school system -- the overcrowding, the harshly regimented studies, the overcompetitive parents and the complete ignorance of how to deal with "differently abled" students.
I highly recommend it!

[panditjugalkishoreshastri]

recomendatioins that demand millions of hours of collective time of the saja's web community will need more than your credentials to verify their power. you have to tell us who you are and why you are who you are instead of not being who you might have been. recommendation is serious business. treating the power of recommendation frivolously can earn your opinion regal disdain and you sure don't want that.

[Kotagiri]

What I'd like to do is tie this article, and the letters especially to an earlier article and discussion involving Martha Nussbaum's take on Indian education. Of special relevance are the letters since one is from Howard Gardner, a noted and well respected authority in the field of education and cognitive science and known well for his path-breaking research into the nature of intelligence.

Martha claimed the Indian educational system was too "IIT"-like, i.e., technocentric and lacking the qualities the country needs more: e.g., the liberal arts, posing tough questions, debate, irreverence, etc. And Howard Gardner says the Indian education system has done well in those same areas (and of course, can do better.)

Howard speaks with knowledge about the subject. And as Prof Bhagwati in his respose to Martha's article said: Martha ought to stick to her own area of expertise (instead of making a fool of herself with her remarks on topics well outside her competency.)

[Sangs madan]

What ever the status of higher edudation there is no looking back .it is the likes of that japanese mother who is so proud that her child has learnt by rote at the age of 5 how 12 X136 is. And it is mother like this who build pressure on a child and by the age of 15/16 when they have to appear for the Boards one witness innumerable no of suicides by school going children.So what is so great about such a system.
Where chilren do not want to even write their own essays and answers but want the teachers to dictate it so that they can go home and mug up the whole thing and reproduce it verbatim sown to the last comma and semi colon.

[Sangs madan]

what is the use of such a system which demands that the child learn by rote only.It is amazing to see that children now want even the essays and letters that they have to write for the language paper dictated so that it can be mugged up and produced verbatim down to the last comma and semi colon.It is the likes of the proud japanese mother who are over expectant and push the child too much.Does she know that the sme system makes innumerable children commit suicide when they have to appear for the Higher secondary exam and for fear of failure and ridicule they take the inevitable course .

[Ravi Chandra]

Well I think the level of education does not depend on which country you come from. But it is a known fact that only India had a university at Nalanda in the ancient times, the first of its kind.India has taught the whole world the true practice of learning.And I see no surprise whatsoever if Japan tries to learn from India.
And for those who think about the primary school education in India,its far much better then it used to be decades ago.Although we lost our essence
of learning which belonged to the ancient times, the seeds are still inherent in the culture.
And for those who think------"to be wise you don't need education. That's why IITians aren't wise just like MITians and HARVARDians. And, being wise is the shortest distance to wisdom, which is a composite of knowledge and experience. knowledge is observation that repeats itself. and experience is a miscellaneous collection of mistakes. IITians just like Harvardians and MITians don't make enough mistakes because they don't try the untried."
Well I have a straight answer,IIT ians dont have much options. They are not allowed to try, they are forced to succeed where there is no room for mistakes.Give then the resources and you will see who are more competitive.I am not justifying that Indians are more talented, atleast they are better than 'Calculator' based american students who struggle on the little machine for a two digit multiplication.