Education and Skills in Japan - Essay Example

Adult education has also offered to cater for those never had childhood education or those who want to further their informal education. Market offers avenues where the skills acquired through the education system are applied. A balance between education which supply skilled and vocationally-oriented workforce and the market has to be established for viable economy of a country to grow. The future of a country economic growth and development is much dependent on emphasis placed on the education system which supply work force in the market.

Education and skills that an individual possesses form the personality and worthiness in the society. The role of education is the social purpose, intellectual purpose, economic purpose and civil/political purpose. The economic purpose reflects that most of those countries with high levels of literacy are the richest countries in the world based on GDP per capita. Market requires education and skills that are able to meet its workforce qualifications successfully. There are usually two approaches i.e. basic scenario and target scenario which if well formulated leads to high levels of employment coupled with high quality jobs for economic growth.

Current Market requires individuals who are knowledgeable and well equipped with new sophisticated technologies to offer solutions in the society. The market offers opportunities for employment based on education and skills possessed by an individual but market forces tend to exploit education qualification at the expense of supply and this should be controlled and regulations formulated by government through the ministry of education of different nations to offer terms and conditions for any opportunities that arise in the market.

2Japan has level of education due to well formulated system after war in the country. The model of education consists of mandatory free basic schooling for children aged 6 to 15 years. Upper secondary not mandatory but about 94% of those who attend lower education enrol and about a 40% of upper secondary graduates make to tertiary education. Today there is high enrolment rate in public institutions leading to high productivity rate in its population. This has led to a mature and learning society with rising incomes, more free time and rise in old population engaged in learning activities.

The graph 1.1 below reflects the number of students who advances to high school from the year 1960 to 2001. There is positive growth in percentage from 57.7% in 1960 and tend to stagnate at 95% by the year 2000.3 This indicates high level of retention of students who forms part of 40 % tertiary institutions. Graph 1.2 reflects the gender parity among those who advance to tertiary institutions for the period. Male students dominated female the whole period but it reached at time between 1975 and 1990 when male enrolment decline significantly while that of female kept a positive growth.

This led to narrowing the gap from 40.4% male and female 12.5% in 1970 to 46.9% male and 32.7% female in 1990.4 -Source: Asahi Shumbun Newspaper, 2006 Source: Asahi Shumbun Newspaper, 2006 ConclusionEconomic prosperity of country heavily relies on education system that produces the work force. Market alone cannot shape the destiny of education and