ABSTRACT
“No single event, with the possible exception of marriage, determines the course of a young [person’s] life as much as entrance examinations, and nothing, including marriage, requires as many years of planning and hard work.” 1 Although written more than a quarter of a century ago, this quote seems to be even more relevant for present-day Japan. While acceptance to a university is an important event in the life of any individual in every country and is very much the concern of candidates and their close relatives, in Japan it is of wide social interest. Pictures of successful students, overcome with joy, appear on the front pages of newspapers and weeklies; correct answers to tests are published and eagerly read; and high schools are ranked according to the number of graduates they manage to send to top universities. Because large companies recruit their new workers from these prestigious universities and their policy, in turn, is to accept students through entrance examinations, Japan’s formal school system has become insufficient—and the juken—examination preparation—industry has emerged. While cram schools exist in other countries, they do not have the same magnitude and importance as they do in Japanese society, where they affect the great majority of households. The role of the industry in the Japanese educational system, its major characteristics of development during recent years, and its affect on the well-being of Japanese families are some of the questions tackled in this article.
