F-level universities
1, All students can graduate.
In Japan, once you get into a university, you can graduate from the university. Usually, 99 percent of students graduate. 1 percent drops out or quit the college for financial reasons. In other word, if you are not faced with such difficulties, you are guaranteed diplomas the moment you have entered universities.
Those from oversees think this system is strange, but we Japanese students have not decide on this system. Even before I was born, the administration of education had adopted this system. Under this system, there tend to be severe competitions when you get into colleges. College entrance exams get more and more difficult. Well off families can afford to get their children to attend private schools and cram schools. Students start to attend cram schools even before they are 10 years old. They tend to expensive private junior high schools and high schools. And they continue to go to cram schools. When they get 18, which means they are in their final years of high school, they take college entrance exams.
The college entrance exams consist of national entrance exam and exams each college makes. About 5-600,000 students sit for national entrance exams each year. They solve the same questions. In contrast, exams each college makes are different from university to university. The tests made by prestigious universities tend to be more difficult than those made by obscure schools. High school students make great efforts to pass these exams. Tokyo university, which is ranked as No1 in Japan, is said to make the most difficult college entrance exams. I have not checked college entrance exams form every university, but this is understandable. The easiest question Tokyo university has made is probably this: prove π＞3.05. This is very easy. You draw regular polygon so that it is in a circle and this polygon’s every angle taches the circle’s inside. The circle has a larger area than that of the polygon. You start with polygons with small number of angles such as 5 or 6. Then you increase the number of angles. When you reach regular polygon with 8 angles, I am sure you can prove π＞3.05.
Japanese high school students study hard to pass college entrance exams. Even when they do not make it into their school of choice, they have developed their study skills. They are accustomed to studying. They have learned how to research things. When they are in universities, they can use these skills to achieve academic success.
2, F-level universities
As Japanese economy developed, the number of middle-class families have also increased. The rate of students who proceed to go to colleges has changed. 20% of students go to universities about 1960. In 2010’s more than half high school students plan to go to universities. The demand has increased. In response to this demand, the number of private universities have increased over 50 years.
These days, the number of children is decreasing. More than 2 million babies were born in Japan every year. Nowadays, the number has shrunk to less than 1 million. Private universities want students to make money. So, many universities entrance exams gets easier and easier. In this fashion, F-level university has first appeared.
S-level universities are prestigious universities such as Tokyo university. A-level universities are pretty good universities such as Kyoto universities. B-level is good. So and so. F-level’s F indicates not only its easiness to pass the exam but also the word “free”. Off course the tuition is expensive. However, you need not prepare to pass the entrance exams, thus the word “free”.
Competition among F-level schools is getting severer these days. The number of children is decreasing, but the number of schools has not decreased. So, you used to get about 30 points out of 300 to get into such schools. (The questions are very easy: change “write” to past tense.) You can pass the exam even if you earn 0 point. They recruit 500 students, but only about 300 students apply now. You can pass the exam without answering any questions. After I graduated from Kyoto university, I took teacher training course from Bukkyo university. They even did not have any entrance exams.
In Japanese style “all out system”, once you get into universities, you are guaranteed diplomas. What’s about F-level universities? Every student can graduate from such universities.
