Page 4 - Japanese Growth and Education: 演講人：Motohisa Kaneko教授

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an old feudal society predominantly dependent on agriculture. Literacy rates

among the population were fairly high (Dore, 1976), but there was no concept of
modern curriculum or school system. Nonetheless, the leaders of the new-born
regime deemed education, particularly primary schools as the key to national

development.

Education and the stages of development

Before going into details, it would be worthwhile to overview the relation
between the changes in participation in education and the stages of economic

development over 150 years since Meiji Restoration in 1868. Figure 1 shows
long-term changes of enrollment rate in primary, secondary and tertiary
education since 1870s. It indicates that the development had three distinctive

stages (Kaneko, 2013b).
Phase 1: Since Meiji restoration (1968) until WW1. From the perspective
of educational development, this is the period of establishment of the modern

education system, and diffusion of primary education. From the perspective of
economic development, this is the period of institutional build-up along with
initial accumulation of social capital (Ohkawa and Rosovsky, 1973).

Phase 2: The period between two World Wars. The focus was set on the
completion of universal attendance at the primary level. Meanwhile, secondary
and tertiary education started expansion. From the perspective of economic

development, this is the initial stage of modern economic growth.
Phase 3: With the intermission due to WWII, education and economy
went into a new phase of development. Lower secondary education became

compulsory, and higher secondary education grew rapidly to reach practically
universal. Higher education started expansion – participation (including four-