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  soldave at 11:13 AM JST - 10th December

  Dogdog - there was a similar thing shown about Turkey by NHK. It actually prompted a Turkish friend of mine to write to NHK and the Turkish Embassy complaining. She actually got a lot of support from the Turkish Embassy in the negative way they had portrayed the country, especially when comparing it to Japan.

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  soldave at 11:14 AM JST - 10th December

  And another thing about statistics like this: they always show you waht you want them to show. rjd wants them to show that Japan is flawless and by far superior to other countries in every aspect. Others want it to show how poor Japan it is. I think it shows the different way the same figure can be interpreted.

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  Samuraiiki at 11:28 AM JST - 10th December

  But can they apply the concepts to practical uses?

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  medievaltimes at 11:32 AM JST - 10th December

  Timeon - It's hard for me to believe a university student would not know what the centigrade scale is too. And it happened just yesterday...that's why I posted about it. Her English was quite good and I made sure there was not the language barrier thing. But hey, at least she has some foreign language skills going for her.

  Anyway, from what I have been told (including Japanese), Japanese universities in general are a joke. They are hard to get into (entrance exam), but once you are in it's goof off time. Many of the majors declared have no practical application to the student's future job (especially for women). The future employer will "train" the new worker to fit that company's mold. Then the worker is in for a life of slave like working hours devoid of any work/family balance.

  What is the purpose of having an education system? If the goal is to learn endurance, memorization, unquestioning obedience, not learning how to deal with failure, being devoid of independent thought/logic/a sense of self/social skills then Japan is the right place.

  I prefer my kids to be "educated" elsewhere...but that's just me.

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  medievaltimes at 11:46 AM JST - 10th December

  Soldave - We talked about both celsius and centigrade.

  Dogdog - I have noticed the same thing about "international" programs on Japanese TV. I got the impression Japan likes to present other countries' standard of living as being less than theirs.

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  555Book at 11:53 AM JST - 10th December

  It is fascinating to see how a same piece of news can illicit so many diverse viewpoints. We all(including myself) seem to interpret things based on our own experience and I can safely say that 99% of the time we are not able to see things as they really are. Something is fundamentally wrong with the way we learn and perceive things, maybe schools should put more emphasis on the process of learning and discovery.

  I used to get really frustrated with my English teacher from the USA for seemingly giving very vague instruction on how to write a good essay. It was only many years later that I realised good teachers do not spoon feed their students, rather they should skilfully guide their students to make their own discovery. Are teachers doing this in math and science classes?

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  Good_Jorb at 12:04 PM JST - 10th December

  I'd like to ask one of these so-called 'scholars' what their views are on globalization.

  Because in other countries it is a commonly discussed topic amongst 15 year olds.

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  seesaw at 01:18 PM JST - 10th December

  yeah, yeah....anything in the robotic frame is the J people cup of tea...and don't forget they score well in aerobic dance competition too...anything standard or copy-cat stuff....:)

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  usaexpat at 06:50 AM JST - 11th December

  too bad the economy is so bad that it won't serve them well. This generation can look forward to living out of internet cafes unless things change here.

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  samsarks at 10:37 PM JST - 11th December

  what are you guys talking about?japanese universities are ranked among the best in the world and of course their graduates perform better on job.most graduands from european and american universities can not do anything.if their education system does not work ,why is it that they are the most advanced country?

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  jonnyboy at 12:19 AM JST - 12th December

  the most important thing my school maths teacher taught me was the following: at least at pre-university level, the study of pure maths is the study of a finite number of techniques used to solve an infinite number of problems which apply to these techniques. essentially all a student needs to do is be aware of the techniques being taught and tested in the syllabus and learn a reliable and personal approach to each. in the test a student needs to do only two things; assess which technique should be applied to a question and then applied their practised technique. i'm no maths genius but this sensible approach led to me getting 97% in my pure maths exam at age 16.

  in short, these scores don't surprise me as the school system in japan is particularly well suited to teaching the above techniques

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  rgetty at 05:52 PM JST - 13th December

  samsarks: are you serious? Japanese Uni being the best in the world, I guess if you are thinking the the world consists of Japan. But they dont do anything in their University's, its just a vacation for the students until they have to grind out the rest of their life in the mines.

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  Ah_so at 05:53 AM JST - 14th December

  medievaltimes: I am sure this girl knows that when weather-girl says "sanju-do", she can wear a T-shirt tomorrow. She may have gone through life without referring to them as Celsius, but I find it hard to believe that she got through all her science exams without writing a C next to temperatures.

  Samuraikai

  But can they apply the concepts to practical uses?

  Walk into an electronics store anywhere in the world and you will have your answer all around you.

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  Nessie at 09:52 AM JST - 14th December

  I am sure this girl knows that when weather-girl says "sanju-do", she can wear a T-shirt tomorrow.

  But does she know that when it's ju-do she has to wear a thicker bra?

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  sageb1 at 05:10 AM JST - 15th December

  suddenly my 110 IQ is great, despite a 32 point decline since the 1980s if the math and sciences scores for Japan are any indication of IQ, given that they are 110-115 percent of the average 500 point score.

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