A study of Collaboration and Cooperation with out-of-School Sectors in Aiming at Diversity and Flexibility in School Education

1994 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 05301039
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Co-operative Research (A)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Educaion
• Research Institution: National Institute for Educational Research (NIER)
• Principal Investigator: ICHIKAWA Shogo Center for National University Finance, Research Department, Professor, 研究部, 教授 (00000050)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): TANAKA Takafumi Tokyo Gakugei University, Education, Lecturer, 教育学部, 講師 (50236600) ; MIWA Kenji Tokai University, Research Institute, Associate Professor, 助教授 (50212246) ; HAYO Masaaki Tokyo Gakugei University, Education, Associate Professor, 教育学部, 助教授 (30114119) ; YASHIKI Kazuyoshi NIER,Educational Policies, Section Chief, 教育政策研究部, 室長 (70150026) ; YUUKI Makoto NIER,Educational Policies, Section Chief, 教育政策研究部, 室長 (20033574)
• Project Period (FY): 1993 – 1994
• Keywords: out-of-school education / diversity and flexibility of school education / roles and funciton of school / entrusting school education to the private out-of-school sectors / private informal education sectors

Research Abstract

The primary purpose inn educatitonal reform that has been carried out today is to foster creativity of students, taking their individualities into careful consideration, as well as to solve problems created by school disorder, trying to recognize and meet various needs of individual students sensibly. The present financial difficulties, however, can hardly make the plan feasible, as long as the school remain unchanged with the responsibility for whole formal education upon its shoulder. Therefore, school education sould seek strategies to avoid relying on for additional public resources in aiming at diversity and flexibility. As one of the strategies, the present study suggests more collaboration and cooperation with various out-of-school sectors.
The tasks set to the researchers are to clarify how the out-of-school sectors or the private sector have been substitutive for and complementary to the school or the public sector so far forth, and how they can be more collaborative and cooper ative with each other.
The summary of the final report is as follows :
1) Prior to the nine chapters, the Introduction attemps a theoretical approach to the roles to be playd in education respectively by the public sector and the private sector, and to the positions to be held by the private out-of-school sectors in Japanese education.
2) The Part One (chapters 1-3) analyzes the information, which has been obtained through the questionnaires sent to local education boards, about the collaboration and cooperation with the out-of-school sectors in local public lower and upper secondary schools, and the information from principals of private lower secondary schools and juku (cram school) owners or managers about their attitudes towards the collaboration and cooperation.
3) The Part Two (chapters 4-6) examines questions concerning entrusting some duty of school education to hired outsiders in the context of "responsibility of the school for education", and then argues for the importance of collaboration and cooperation with juku and preparatory choaching schools from the viewpoint of their flourishing development and educational expenses covered heavily by households. Moreover, the chapter 6 treats the present situations and problems of diversification in education of adults and out-of-school youths, based upon the case studies in three urban areas.
4) The Part Three (chapters 7-9) comprises three articles contributed by the panelists who took part in the symposium held in 1994, the second year of the research period.
5) The Part Four includes the questionnaires and responses and the list of sites visited for interviews.