How the japanese learn to work 2nd edition - part 10 docx

22 375 0
How the japanese learn to work 2nd edition - part 10 docx

Đang tải... (xem toàn văn)

Tài liệu hạn chế xem trước, để xem đầy đủ mời bạn chọn Tải xuống

Thông tin tài liệu

Policies and prospects 169 of post-war Prime Ministers, Hayato Ikeda. ‘Human resources’ (jinteki shigen) were two of his favourite words. The legal framework for the Ministry of Labour’s training and testing activities—the 1959 law—was set at that time. Retraining needs from the run-down of the coal industry as cheap oil began to flow in the 1960s provided another momentary focusing of political interest (and the brilliant idea of earmarking a tiny oil-import tax for that retraining led to a valuable source of finance for vocational training as a whole, via the Employment Projects Promotion Agency). In the 1970s, the switch to slower growth after the oil shock coming, together with the realization of how much more rapidly the Japanese population’s average age would rise than any other nation’s before, brought the question of retraining for the older, especially the ‘voluntary retired’, worker into political focus—and the revision of the Vocational Training Law in 1978 was in part a response to that. That issue still smoulders, but by and large VET is still not a matter of great political interest as it is in some other countries. No-one would think of appointing a political overlord to co-ordinate policy. Japan has so far avoided large-scale youth unemployment. If there is a concentration of unemployment among the least skilled segments of the working population, it has hitherto gone unremarked. Skill shortages are sometimes forecast—as when a MITI committee forecast a 600,000 deficit in software technicians by 1990—but these rate only relatively restricted coverage in the industrial press. The 1984 revision of the vocational training law (the Law to Promote the Development of Vocational Skills) requires the Minister of Labour to promulgate a national plan, but this formality amounts to little more than a description of the Ministry’s current budget initiatives and a forecasting of future ones. (See Cantor 1984, McDerment 1985, RDIVT 1984, etc. for accounts of the formal system.) CONSULTATION AND RESEARCH The viability of the sectionalist modus vivendi means that it is left to each Ministry separately to find ways of keeping in touch with its constituency, and of canvassing for suggestions about, or monitoring the effects of, its policies. The Ministry of Labour has a Central Consultative Committee (distinct from the Central Skill Development Association which has the executive function of running the testing services) on which sit eight ‘men of learning and experience’ (six professors, one essayist and one pension fund president), six trade unionists and six employers’ representatives. The Ministry of Education has a similar Consultative Committee for Scientific 170 How the Japanes learn to work and Vocational Education—similarly composed except that it does not have the formal trade union representation. Various bureaus in MITI set up ad hoc committees for separate fields—like the one quoted above on software skills, while the Enterprise Behaviour Section of the Policy Bureau, which has a watching brief for training matters in general keeps in touch with panels of outside experts and mobilizes them for particular research and consultative exercises. A similar section in MITI’s Small and Medium Enterprise Agency has a similar function. The purely consultative status of the formal bodies, and the general tradition that they should allow their secretariats to set their agendas, mean that their influence on policy is not great. Research efforts are equally multi-sourced. The Ministry of Labour has two research centres under its budgetary control—the one at its university- level Research and Development Institute of Vocational Training, and the other, a free-standing quango which takes the English title: National Institute of Employment and Vocational Research. The former is the only centre of note for work on the pedagogy of skill training, but both are engaged in socio-economic research. In the latter they are matched by the Ministry of Education’s National Institute for Educational Research and by a research institute—the Japan Efficiency Association—at Sanno College which is supported by MITI. (NIER tends to stick to work related to the schools within the Ministry of Education’s purview, and the JEA to research within industry, but there is a good deal of overlap.) There is also an employers’ training association (the Japan Industrial and Vocational Training Association, associated with the Japan Productivity Council) which spends a little over one per cent of its half-billion yen budget on research. Both the great degree of overlap in these research activities and their overall quality may be gauged from such of it as has been cited in these pages. Very little of it is observational or interview research; the vast bulk is postal survey research with low response rates, which raises as many questions as it answers. Nevertheless, it does answer some questions and raising others is also a very useful activity. It also has to be said that Japanese policy-makers are very well-served by the established statistical services— triennial establishment census, the annual wages survey, the monthly and annual labour surveys, the non-wage labour costs survey, etc. —which are maintained at a high standard. Policies and prospects 171 RECENT TRENDS Vocational training, how much should be spent on it, how it can be improved in order to enhance the nation’s ‘competitiveness’ is no more a burning political issue in Japan than it was when the first edition of this book was written in 1988. An electronic trawl through two months of a major paper (The Nagoya Chunichi, October 1996 and February 1997) found no articles containing the words ‘vocational education’ (shokugyo kyoiku) and only 17 which contained the two words (occupation—shokugyo and education) separately. Only 9 contained the words ‘skill development’ (noryoku kaihatsu). In the same months there were 1,291 references to ‘primary education’, and 456 references to ‘middle schools’. There were 7 references to the vocational special training schools (senshu-gakko), and 1,444 articles which contained the word ‘university’. So society as a whole is not much exercised about vocational training, however it might actively question whether or not the basic educational system is producing the creative individualists which everybody seems to think Japan needs. For trends in thinking about the directions of the vocational educational system itself one is forced to have recourse to the four main monthly magazines for training specialists, and there it is difficult to discern any clear recent trends. We noted in the first edition of this book a general long-term shift of emphasis from concern with initial training to mid-career training. This was the more marked in Ministry of Labour circles because it failed to adapt the initial training programmes of its Vocational Training Centres to the rapid attenuation of the 15-year-old school-leaving group in the 1960s, it lost out to the private sector Special Training Schools in the attempt to capture the growing army of 18-year-old school-leavers, and has never succeeded in recapturing a substantial position in the initial training field. We also noted the changes of nomenclature which have occurred as, over the years, the image of the modal industrial trainee has shifted from that of the rude mechanical apprentice who needs a good dose of discipline in his instruction, to that of the middle-class, middle-aged employee struggling with a new software package, or trying to master a new set of environmental legislation. Training has not become a part of the ‘human resource management’ which has made acceptable for business schools what used to be called industrial relations in the US and Britain. As just mentioned, Prime Minister Ikeda popularized the phrase ‘human resources’ in the 1960s, but it never entered the formal vocabulary. But the old word shokugyo kunren— 172 How the Japanes learn to work vocational training—which used to be the title of the relevant Ministry of Labour’s Bureau, and also of the 1959 law, and the 1978 amended law, clearly had overtones of disciplined slog which were not thought consonant with the modern age. The word gave way, both in the title of the Bureau and in the 1984 comprehensive revamping of the legislation, to shokugyo noryoku kaihatsu—vocational ability (skill, talent) development—with its more positive, learner-participative overtones. Almost simultaneously, one began to hear more of the word jiko-keihatsu—self-study, literally, self- enlightenment—the vogue word for autodidactic efforts, of which much is still made, especially in company training programmes. The coming word, used in the title of the 1996 Ministry of Labour White Paper, is jinzai ikusei (shisutemu) —the (system for) fostering human talent. The increasing emphasis on self-study was (as explained in the Ministry’s 1985 White Paper (RH 1985:221)) in part a response to the increasing difficulty in standard-packaging industrial training, as the skills required increasingly involved know-how arising from rapid technological development, or enterprise-specific know-how in production processes. One of the main thrusts of the 1984 law was to use the enhanced funding of training (through use of the accumulated funds of the employment insurance system) for advisory support for, and subsidization of, enterprise training efforts. This included both deliberate Off-J-T teaching within the firm, and the enterprise standard-setting and enterprise skill-testing designed to encourage individual efforts at ‘self-enlightenment’ in supplementation of the Ministry’s own skill-testing system. We followed our summary of these trends with this paragraph. This emphasis on ‘self-enlightenment’ also reflects another trend, namely an increasing acceptance that the lifetime employment system, having survived the no-growth crisis in the mid–1970s and the adjustment to slow-growth since, is here to stay. That is to say, in spite of some marginal signs to the contrary such as the increased mobility of R & D personnel in large companies, the most complex, hard-to- learn skills (particularly those on which the competitiveness of the Japanese economy depends) will continue to be the property of the core of permanent workers in large firms. Indeed, some people argue that such a trend towards employing highly trained core workers is increasingly becoming apparent in older and hitherto more mobile industrial societies like Britain. Policies and prospects 173 It would be difficult to write with quite the same assurance today. Over the last five years of recession, a recession caused partly by the accumulated strength of the yen, combined with the aftermath of the collapse of the biggest asset-price bubble in Japan’s history, what people say about employment, careers, and training has changed significantly. What people do has changed rather less. The main factors causing the change in perceptions have been: (a) A loss of national self-confidence. For every Japanese who, in 1990, was convinced that the world was at Japan’s feet, and that, thanks to the superiority of Japanese management and technology, it was only a matter of time before Japan was Number One in practically everything, there are now five Japanese wringing their hands and asking: ‘Where are our Bill Gates? Why don’t we have a flourishing venture capital industry? How are we ever going to survive in a competitive world economy with our rigid, creativity- stifling, bureaucratic corporations?’ (b) As described in Chapters 4 and 5, slow growth has indeed stretched the ‘lifetime employment guarantee’ to the limit, and many firms have responded with voluntary and quasi-voluntary early retirement schemes, with outposting and transfer of workers to other firms and so on. This has put a premium on the mastery of some particular certifiable skill, and since a high proportion of the early-retired are (the more expensive) white collar/ managerial workers, the courses they take (mostly by correspondence) are predominantly non-manual. Accountancy, Expert in Labour Law and Health and Safety Regulations, Business Health Diagnostician (consultant to small firms) are the favourites which one sees most frequently advertised. They are taken by middle-aged graduates uncertain of their future with their firm, and also—the first two at least—by young people who catch the ‘no more jobs for life’ mood and either ‘double-school’ (take a course leading to one of these qualifications while attending university) or study in the early years of their first job. (c) As a consequence, as documented earlier in this book, there has been a revival of the notion that what is universally seen as the American, or sometimes ‘Western’, model of the fully flexible external labour market, with frequent job changes in the course of one’s career, is what Japan ought to aim for, and is in any case dictated by the logic of flexibility increasingly imposed on Japan by competitive forces in world markets. There is much discussion of the end of, or more commonly and cautiously the need for a fundamental rethinking of, lifetime employment. 174 How the Japanes learn to work The Ministry of Labour is, of course, always having to think of something new, because the lifeblood of any Ministry comes from thinking up new and attractive programmes that can serve to increase its clout with the Ministry of Finance in the annual budget round. And attractive is generally deemed to mean ‘in keeping with the journalistic consensus’. So its major recent initiative has been its Business Career System promotion of white collar training courses leading to certification which has some market value. But the summary of trends in its 1996 White Paper is much less apocalyptic than some of the statements of futurologist businessmen proclaiming the dawn of a new age. Hitherto, most off-the-job training has been done within the firm, and most ‘self-enlightenment’ has been done at home. Henceforth, the emphasis will shift from on- to off-the-job training, and while self- study will continue to be important, a variety of training methods, including the use of training institutions outside the firm, will become necessary. (RH 1996:295–9) And the Ministry hopes that therein the beleaguered public training institutions might find a new lease of life. The reasons for the change it enumerates are: greater importance of information technology; the need for more language training with internationalization; more rapid change, therefore more midlife learning; and increasing need for R & D workers and others with highly specialized knowledge. It points out that Japanese firms have concentrated so exclusively on on-the-job learning that the need for off-the-job training has been neglected after the initial induction of recruits. But knowledge requirements become increasingly complex and more off- the-job training is clearly necessary. As for self-study, it finds satisfaction in its growing prevalence and cites surveys showing that half the working population are engaged in it, but urges employers to give it more attention and support—taking it into account more for promotions, etc. —and promises to increase Ministry support for it too. In this context it speaks of meeting the needs of people leaving or changing their jobs, but does not actually assert that their number is increasing; it does refer, however, to the increasing diversification of forms of employment— meaning more part-time, temporary and despatched workers. But it is clear that the Ministry is not expecting any very big change in the overall pattern of Japanese vocational training with its dominant emphasis on training in the enterprise. The resilience of the Japanese corporate system, Policies and prospects 175 the sources of which, in manufacturing, have recently been analysed by Berggren and Nomura (1997), may one day not be enough to deal with a really deep crisis without radical change, but the longest post-war recession of the last half-decade did not constitute such a crisis. To take a few random statistics from the back of the 1996 White Paper: of the 5 million employees in firms of more than 30 employees who left their jobs in the year, the proportion who did so ‘at the employer’s convenience’ was 6.1 per cent in 1990, 7.5 per cent of an almost identical total in 1994. The proportion of all employees who were part-time, temporary or despatched workers was 16 per cent in 1987 and 18.1 per cent in 1992. The average wage of male university graduates was 31.9 per cent higher than that of middle school graduates in 1990, 31.2 per cent higher in 1995. If one weights the wage by (the inverse of) average age (the middle school-leavers are of course a good deal older on average) the graduate premium increases to 67.7 per cent in 1990 and 69.9 per cent in 1995. Bonuses (average for all employees) were 3.3 times the monthly wage in 1990, 3.1 times the monthly wage in 1995. Of all male employees aged over 55, 21.9 per cent were directors of the company they worked for in 1987, 21.6 per cent in 1992. And, finally, an indication of one source of flexibility: monthly hours worked were 171 in 1990 and 159 in 1995; in manufacturing hours were 174 and 164 respectively. The contribution that this sort of system stability and predictability makes to learning motivations should be fairly obvious. Appendix NOTES The sums budgeted here provide a one-third subsidy for expenditures on relevant items by local governments or private schools, and a 60 per cent subsidy in the case of Okinawa. This is the budget for expenditure over and above the basic salary, running costs and capital costs which are provided on the same basis for vocational high schools as for other high schools. The ¥16,824 million total represents 0.3 per cent of the total Ministry of Education budget (which covers the universities, the science budget and museums and so on, as well as the school system) and is approximately one-quarter of the sum provided for special schools for the handicapped, and one-tenth of that provided for children with special needs in regular schools. 1 Experimental equipment and consumables, including materials for schools which make their own equipment. 2 Replacement of existing equipment. 3 Special increase occasioned by new regulation making domestic science compulsory for boys as well as girls. 4 To improve the experimental facilities necessary for the new objective of making it possible for pupils to acquire a qualified nursing certificate. 5 Boarding facilities to concentrate the scarce would-be farmers in special agricultural schools. 6 Standard cost allowed (including the local two-thirds contribution) ranges from ¥164,100 to ¥188,700 per square metre. 7 This is for special equipment which has to be built into new or renovated buildings. Mostly to be used for the expanded domestic science facilities. 8 For purchase and preparation of farm land at ¥15.5 million per hectare. 9 Two large and one small boat. Appendix 177 Bibliography Amano, I. (1984) ‘Daigaku-gun no hikaku-bunseki’ (‘Comparative analysis of university groupings’) in T.Keii, ed. Daigaku hyoka no kenkyu (The evaluation of universities), Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai. —— (1994) Daigaku: henkaku no jidai (The university: Time of change), Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai. —— (1996) Nihon no kyoiku shisutemu: kozo to hendo (The Japanese educational system: Structure and change), Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai. Berggren, C. and Nomura, M. (1997) The resilience of corporate Japan: Competitive strategies and personnel practices in a new low-growth era, London: Paul Chapman. Bhasanavich, D. (1985) ‘An American in Tokyo: Jumping to the Japanese beat’, IEEE Spectrum, September. Cantor, L. (1984) ‘The Institute of Vocational Training, Japan’, BACIE Journal, 39, vi: 211–13. —— (1985) ‘Vocational education and training: The Japanese approach’, Comparative Education, 21, i. Chingin (1984) Rodosho, Seisaku-chosabu (Ministry of Labour, Policy Research Division), 1984 Chingin rodojikan seido-to sogo chosa hokoku (Comprehensive survey of wages, work hours, etc.). Chingin Kozo (various years) Rodosho, Seisaku-chosabu (Ministry of Labour, Policy Research Division) Chingin kozo kihon tokei chosa hokoku (Basic statistical survey of wage structures). Chung, P.S. (1986) ‘Engineering education systems in Japanese universities’, Comparative Education Review, 30, iii , August. Chuo shokugyo noryoku kaihatsu kyokai (1994) Shokugyo noryoku kaihatsu shisetsu gaido bukku (A guide to vocational training facilities), Tokyo: Tokyo Printechs. Dore, R.P. (1981) Energy conservation in Japanese industry, London: PSI. —— (1986) ‘Where will the Japanese Nobel prizes come from?’, Science and Public Policy, 13, vi , December. Grayson, L.P. (1983a) ‘Leadership or stagnation? A role for technology in mathematics, science and engineering education’, Engineering Education, February. [...]... national self-confidence 173 NEC 107 ; training school 102 , 103 –5, 106 Nihon Victor 89 Noguchi, Y 41 Nomura, M 175 Non-destructive Testing Association 137 non-formal in-firm training 108 –14 non-manual skills tests 144–5 non-official qualifications 155–6 numeracy 12 nursing courses 45 nursing schools 77–9 NYK 39 off -the- job training xv, 101 –8, 109 , 131–2, 174 older, more experienced workers 109 open access... Bunkyo-yosan no aramashi (Outline of the educational budget) Yosetsu (1986a) Nihon Yosetsu Kyokai (The Japan Welding Engineering Society), Go-annai (A guide to the society), Tokyo Bibliography 183 —— (1986b) Nihon Yosetsu Kyokai (The Japan Welding Engineering Society), Shikaku-nintei-seido no go-annai (An outline of licensed qualifications offered by the Society) Zeng, K (1995) ‘Japan’ s dragon gate: The. .. 1422, June Senshu (1986) Zenkoku senshu, kakushu gakko annai, Showa-62-nen (1987 National guide to senshu and kakushu schools), Tokyo: Obunsha Takeuchi, Y (1989) ‘Shinki daisotsu rodo shijo ni okeru “nejire” koka’ ( The distortion effect in the new-graduate labour market’), Kyoto daigaku kyoikugakubu kiyo, 35 Tokyo Prefecture (1989) Tokyotoritsu Rodo Kenkyusho, Senshu gakko (senmon gakko) sotsugyosei... Bibliography RH (1985) Rodosho, Showa-60-nen Rodo Hakusho (1985 Labour White Paper), Tokyo: Nihon Rodo Kyokai —— (1996) Rodosho, Rodo Hakusho (Labour White Paper), Tokyo: Nihon Rodo Kenkyu Kiko Rodosho (1986) Koyo kanri chosa (Labour management survey), Tokyo: Ministry of Labour —— (1991) Seisaku-chosa-bu (Ministry of Labour, Policy Research Bureau) Chingin, rodo-jikan seido to sogo-chosa hokoku (Survey of... kenkyu hokoku: Showa 59-nendo chosa hokokusho (Survey on enterprise training, 1984) —— (1986) Zen-Nihon Noritsu-remmei, Kigyo-nai kyoiku ni kansuru chosa kenkyu hokoku: Showa 60-nendo chosa hokokusho (Survey on enterprise training, 1985) Odaka, K (1993) Kigyonai kyoiku no jidai (The era of in-company training), Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Prais, S (1987) ‘Education for productivity: comparisons of Japanese and... education), Tokyo Moriyama, K, and Noguchi, Y (1984) ‘Koko-shingaku ni okeru gakko-gai kyoikutoshi no koka’ ( The efficacy of extra-school investment in high school entrance examination performance’), Kyoiku Shakaigaku Kenkyu , 39 ND (1986) ‘Waga sha no shanai gino kentei’ (‘Our internal skill-test system’), Shokugyo kaihatsu jaanaru , February NK (1985) Zen-Nihon Noritsu-remmei, Kigyo-nai kyoiku ni... (Annual action plan, 1986), Tokyo —— (1986b) Keikinzoku Yosetsu Kozo Kyokai (The Light Metals Welded Structures Association), Showa 60-nendo jigyo hokokusho (Report on activities in 1985), Tokyo Kigyo (1986, 1994) ‘59-nendo jisseki, 60-nendo yosan ni miru kyoiku kunrenhiyo no jittai’ ( The actual state of training expenditure as seen in 1985 budgets and 1984 out-turns’), Kigyo to jinzai , January 1996,... factories 120–1 literacy 12, 98 local government 80 Lorriman, J 110 machinery 52–3 Bibliography management: cooperation with labour 127–8; training by managerial staff 109 , 110, 112–13 manual skills tests 144–5 manufacturing sector 148 Maritime Association 137 Master’s degrees 96 Matsushita Electric 100 ; Technical Junior College 75 McCormick, K 107 meritocracy 3, 14 mid-career recruitment 97 mid-career... senkyu 27: 76–83 Koto (1991) Mombusho (Ministry of Education), Koto gakko gakushu shido yoryo (Curriculum guidelines for senior secondary schools), Tokyo Koyo (1980) Ministry of Labour, Koyo kanri chosa (Survey on employment management), Tokyo Kume, K (1978) Beio Kairan Jikki (Record of a journey to the US and Europe), Tokyo: Iwanami Lorriman, J (1986) ‘Ichiban The Japanese approach to engineering education’,... 135–7 White, M 110 white collar workers 76; Business Career System 76, 94, 115, 174; popularity of qualifications 153–5 ‘whole role’ qualifications xvi–xvii, 158–9 work ethic: resuscitation of 55 work experience 46, 57 workers: categories of and firms’ expenditure on training 102 ; commitment 125–8; foremen 108 – 9; involvement in training 125–9; older, more experienced 109 ; shopfloor workers 108 –9; supervisors . rapid attenuation of the 15-year-old school-leaving group in the 1960s, it lost out to the private sector Special Training Schools in the attempt to capture the growing army of 18-year-old school-leavers,. companies, the most complex, hard -to- learn skills (particularly those on which the competitiveness of the Japanese economy depends) will continue to be the property of the core of permanent workers. system, having survived the no-growth crisis in the mid–1970s and the adjustment to slow-growth since, is here to stay. That is to say, in spite of some marginal signs to the contrary such as the increased

Ngày đăng: 21/07/2014, 20:22

Từ khóa liên quan

Tài liệu cùng người dùng

  • Đang cập nhật ...

Tài liệu liên quan