This paper explores the admissions practices of an 'Elite Traditional International School' (ETIS) in a large city in Japan. The school is seeing falling enrolment from its traditional clients e.g.'transnational capitalist class' families working for Embassies and its alumnus, whilst attracting an emergent aspiring locally-based body of parents…

The role of teachers in education is widely acknowledged in educational studies that routinely find that quality of teaching is fundamental to student success. Accordingly, this study set out to examine and describe the professional development of teachers in countries where students perform better in the PISA assessment, namely, Finland, Estonia,…

The aim of this study is to analyze teacher education systems in China and Japan, and compare the findings with teacher education in Turkey, thus contribute to the developments in teacher education in Turkey. The research was based on the years 2000 to 2017. Document analysis method, which is one of the qualitative data collection methods, is used…

First-time entrants to tertiary education are required to make interconnected decisions about their field of study, the fees they will pay and the application requirements they are prepared to face. Their choice of programme and institution will be influenced by the costs and entry criteria. The decisions they make about what to study and where…

Background: Variations in the skill profiles of learners have become an important research area in recent years. However, there is a lack of empirical research on this topic in Japan. We conducted three studies to address this gap. Methods: Study 1 investigated the characteristics of the flat and uneven skill profiles of Japanese learners of…

The study evaluated a recently postponed national test policy on the use of external agencies' English tests measuring four skills for Japanese university admission purposes. Using Kunnan's principles of fairness and justice, we generated and evaluated three claims regarding the test policy: vocabulary coverage of the tests, the justifiability of…

Because internationalization in higher education has recently received significant attention within the context of globalization, universities in Japan have begun to develop study-abroad programs to support their students in gaining international experience. This article explores those university policies designed to support the…

The "300,000 International Students Plan" called for a significant increase in the number of international students in Japan, from 140,000 to 300,000. It was announced by the Japanese government in 2008 and the Global 30 Project, implemented as part of the Plan, has triggered the growth of English-taught degree (hereafter…

Currently, large-scale testing in Japan faces conflicting requirements derived from principles of education on the one hand, and measurement, on the other. Issues of affective ambivalence towards tests (i.e. test aversion and dependence) are also observed. The seemingly conflicting government discussions regarding the national assessment of…

Numerous researches have demonstrated the enormous role of teachers in achievements of students. Educated and motivated teacher that cares about the success of students devotes more effort to preparing the lesson and thus provides the students better conditions for achieving results. The problem occurs when teachers are not equally qualified,…

Despite the influence of changing demographics in Japan, the National Center Test for University Entrance Exams continues to assert an ever increasing role in the process of university admissions. In preparation for this examination, the majority of senior high school students learn from textbooks approved by the Japanese Ministry of Education,…

College-bound students in Japan undergo a process of intense preparation known as "examination hell." An extreme manifestation of "examination hell" is the "ronin" phenomenon. Typically 30% of students choose the "ronin" option under which they spend years in addition to high school preparing for the next…

Used data from the Careers after Higher Education: A European Research Survey (CHEERS) to examine the selectivity of higher education institutions across countries and fields, particularly in Europe and Japan. The example of business studies reveals that the selection process is heterogeneous across countries. Differences between types of…

The purpose of this paper was to examine the cross-national performance of fourth- and eighth-grade students in mathematics on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2003. The TIMSS assessment data were used to identify nations that have a competitive edge in the critical area of mathematics. The Trends in International…