Rethinking Schooling for the 21st Century

This dichotomy, though somewhat crude, has a crucial bearing on the East
Asian experience of modernisation. This is starkly evident in the case of
China. Writing at the very advent of the ‘Reform and Opening’ era in 1978, one
prominent critical intellectual expressed vehement opposition to a vision of
citizens as ‘mere tools… for carrying out modernisation’ (quoted in Pantsov
and Levine, 2015, p. 340). The predominance of an instrumental conception of
education’s role in forming citizens for state service remains a feature of official
discourse. This asserts that a fiercely competitive international order requires
prioritisation of the pursuit of ‘comprehensive national strength’ (zonghe guoli),
for which purpose the improvement of the ‘comprehensive quality’ (zonghe
suzhi) of the population is essential (China, 2014). Features of the ‘quality’
citizen highlighted in official documents include a capacity for ‘innovation’ and
‘creativity’ often defined in broad terms: for example, the primary-level ‘Morality
and Life’ (pinde yu shenghuo) curriculum features six separate references to
the importance of creativity, declaring that ‘mental and physical activity and
a creative life are intrinsic to children’s individual development needs’. But
the same curriculum features no references at all to critical thinking as such,
nor to human rights, freedom of expression, democratic participation or the
concept of global citizenship. Meanwhile, a conception of ‘morality’ that accords
supreme importance to patriotism is reflected in the four references in the same
document to the nation as a privileged referent of identity. By contrast, the
primary science curriculum features 13 references to the importance of critical
thinking as well as 8 to creativity. Innovative or creative thinking is apparently
considered more important in relation to scientific and technical matters than to
critical discussion of ethical, social or political issues (see Figure 3.1).
In Japan, the education reform agenda has been driven by a mounting sense of
national crisis, rooted in perceptions of social malaise and international risk
exacerbated by relative economic decline. The official response has involved an
increasing emphasis on educational ‘internationalisation’. Focused at the high
school and, especially, tertiary levels, this has been interpreted as involving
the fostering of ‘human resources’ (jinzai) equipped for an era of globalization.
For Japanese officials, as for their Chinese counterparts, maximising national
economic competitiveness and geostrategic heft tend to rank highly amongst
the ‘social needs’ education policy is tasked with addressing. For this purpose,
the current government has sought to ratchet up the already overwhelming bias,
at tertiary level, towards hard sciences, engineering and medicine, and away
from humanities, arts and social sciences (Japan, 2015).
At the level of schooling, the more student-centred aim of promoting ‘zest for
living’ (ikiru chikara) — which first gained currency during the reforms of the
late 1990s — remains ubiquitous in official documents (P. General Provisions
Com., pp. 1, 2, 3, 6, 16, 21, 22). Premised on a perception of the nation’s youth
as morally and psychologically damaged or inadequate, this suggests that
students are expected to become self-directed enthusiasts for learning and
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Chapter 3: East Asia