Kishor Jagirdar | Executive Member | India Japan Global Partnership Summit

As Indian school education gains fans in Japan and the Japanese academia reaches out to Indian varsities, promising tie-ups are on the anvil that will present major opportunities for Indian educationists and students.

Something is slipping in Japan, and it’s ringing alarm bells and causing dismay in the minds of parents of school-going children in the tiny nation, albeit the most advanced in Asia. A few months ago, Japanese academicians were equally appalled to learn that the country had fallen from first place in 2000 to tenth place in as many years, in an international survey of math skills. The performance slide puts Japan behind Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea. In science too, the country is not faring as it well as it used to. Whereas it used to boast the first runners up (second) place, it now stands sixth.

Interestingly, the turned tables are leading Japanese parents and academicians alike to look at India with new eyes. So, of all its Asian rivals, why is India emerging as Japan’s new interest in the education sector?

What goes in favour ofIndiais the country’s prowess in software development, Internet businesses and knowledge-intensive industries, areas where Japan has failed to make inroads. Also, pertinent aspects of the Indian education system are attracting Japanese attention. Indian children are taught more at an earlier age, the Indian education system is known for promoting learning by rote – Indian children recite tables like parrots, as they say – and maths and science scores count for a lot in the country. Strangely, these aspects used to apply to Japanese education, but no longer. Another reason that may be fanning Japanese parents’ interest in the more demanding Indian education is Japan’s intensely competitive college entrance exams. Putting two and two together, parents reckon that their wards would be better off studying harder, in Indian schools in Japan.

Queues outside the handful of Indian schools in Tokyo are growing longer, as parents stand in line hoping to find a place for their wards.Tokyo’s Little Angels Kindergarten boasts of all but one of its flock of 45 students being Japanese. Parents don’t mind that the textbooks are from India, classroom posters echo themes from Indian fables, and the teachers are South Asian, as long as the under fives are taught to count to 20 and introduced to computers, and the five-year-olds learn to multiply, solve math word problems and write one-page essays in English, skills most Japanese elementary schools only impart in second grade.

The furore over education has reached a point where even the Japanese education ministry is acknowledging Indian teaching methods. Asian economic upstart Japan looking for lessons from the continent’s emerging superpower,India, would have been unheard of a few years ago. It was commonplace for the land of the rising sun to look much further West, to the US, for successful education models. But ever since facilities that once turned out students who consistently ranked at the top of international tests began failing,India has become the newfound interest. And it’s not only restricted to Indian kindergarten education.

As Japan also wakes up to the positives of the rigorous standards of education imparted by English-language Indian schools, from nursery through to high school, establishments such as The Global Indian International School and India International School in Japan’s top few cities are preparing to take their offerings to the country’s second rung of urban conglomerates. If this new crop of schools follows the Indian trend of adopting innovative technology to enhance the delivery of education, by training teachers in ICT-based skills, the takers for Indian-styled education in Japan is poised to rise. The buzzword in the Indian education system is to encourage collaborative environments in which students learn with technology, as opposed to learning technology. In bundling technology with education, at least,India is miles ahead of Japan. In spite of the latter’s School New Deal Policy, an endeavour aiming at equipping classrooms and teachers with tech tools, the embrace of technology in the tech-rich nation still leaves much to be desired.

Still, Japan scores ahead of India at the level of higher studies. Whereas Japan faces a problem of plenty – there will soon be fewer takers for university seats than what is available no thanks to its declining birth rate –India faces a paucity of seats in almost every stream of education. Not surprisingly, Japanese universities are introducing more courses in English and scholarship programmes in a bid to attract overseas students.India, with its huge numbers of students looking for quality education and placements, is bound to be a target nation.

Indian students are likely to be attracted to study in Japan, if they can gain admission to courses in automotive engineering, life sciences, electronics, railways, solid waste management, and renewable energy – areas in which the country is a global leader. After all, it is acknowledged that the nation’s proven competitiveness in these fields stems from its educational excellence at the university-level. Students in Japan also gain from the close association between the country’s universities, research institutions and industry, linkages aimed at coming up with commercially-oriented and socially useful research, and the likes of which India has yet to fully develop. Greater engagement between Indian and Japanese educational establishments would enable the exchange of faculty and researchers and possibly help address this shortcoming. Such interest has already been evinced by Japanese institutions, with stalwarts like Professor Sawaguchi Manabu, professor atWasedaUniversity, Graduate School of Creative and Engineering, Department of Business Design and Management visiting Indiain March this year to discuss the possibility of collaborating in the academic area of Design & Manufacturing with IIT-H.

As research and development activities are increasingly globalised, especially in sectors like motor vehicles, textile and apparel, and electrical equipment, Indian universities could benefit tremendously from engaging with Japan. While theUSand some Commonwealth and European countries have been India’s accepted partners in tertiary education, new linkages with countries such as Japan,South Korea, and Brazil could help add a new dimension to Indian tertiary education, besides create more job opportunities for technology graduates and post-graduates. Japan is on the one hand, emerging asIndia’s largest bilateral provider of economic and technical assistance. On the other hand, the country has a fast ageing population for which reason it could emerge as an attractive employment destination for Indians, of whom individuals who have acquired a cultural understanding of the country from spending their student life there would have an edge.

For all this to happen, it would help if more language schools in India offer the opportunity to learn Japanese. Overcoming the language barrier would also present greater opportunities for India-Japan industrial collaboration and enhance the employ-ability of Indians in Japanese companies and research labs in India.

Deeper ties in tertiary education would add leverage to the India-Japan strategic partnership, and pave the way for a new round of engagement. But such ties are best forged during face to face interactions. That’s why educationists interested in making the most of the opportunities have done well to meet the line up of potential collaborators, Japanese educationists at the India Japan Global Partnership Summit, held from September 5 to 7 in Tokyo. This event, supported by the Governments of India and Japan and apex trade bodies in the two nations, was being organised by the India Centre Foundation to mark 10 years of the announcement of India-Japan Global Partnership Agreement and pave the way forward for greater cooperation between the two nations. The ball has already been set rolling in the education sector. Now, it’s time for it to gain momentum.

Kishor Jagirdar
Executive Member

India Japan Global Partnership Summit
(Strategic Change Management Specialist)