Three Models of Governance: Regulating Shadow Education in Japan, India and China

• In Event: Presidential Invited Session: Shadow Education in Asia: Complexities and Dynamics in Access and Equity

Proposal

Across the world, regulation of shadow education has lagged far behind regulation of schooling. In some countries it is beginning to catch up, albeit with different speeds and emphases. This paper compares three very different models, namely those in Japan, India and China.

In Japan, historically Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) disapproved of the tutorial institutions known as juku. The Constitution protected the free market and individual rights, which meant that juku could not be banned; but MEXT kept its distance from the sector. Nevertheless, the 1980s brought initiatives by the body that was later called the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), through which juku were regulated as commercial enterprises. Yet as shadow education became entrenched, tutoring became a norm of many children’s lives. MEXT realised that juku would not disappear despite the social criticism and official distancing. In 1999 the Lifelong Education Council recognised the co-existence of juku and schooling, and the roles of tutoring in meeting differentiated family demand for what was not offered by schooling. This was in effect a form of official recognition of juku by MEXT as part of Japan’s education system. Since then, MEXT has increasingly communicated and engaged with juku associations, and has tried to identify and harness their positive roles.

Patterns in India reflect the decentralized system of government. At the national level the 2013 Companies Act sets a general framework for businesses of all kinds, but more detailed regulations are left to state governments. One of the early movers was Maharashtra, which has had registration requirements since 2000 but weak implementation. State governments that followed included those of Goa, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Yet all state governments face challenges of implementation, and some prefer simply to adopt laissez faire approaches.

China, by contrast, is marked by fierce government regulations issued in July 2021. These regulations were the culmination of controls first on teachers providing tutoring and then on commercial enterprises. The 2021 regulations closed many tutorial institutions on the grounds that they were burdening students and families. Also underlying the 2021 regulations was a view that the shadow system was threatening the mainstream, particularly by teaching in advance, and that foreign capital was being deployed excessively at the expense of Chinese families.

Taken together, these three case studies show striking diversity in models. Both the (non-)architecture and the (non-)enactment provide instructive pillars for construction of theoretical understanding, with other models filling some of the gaps.

Author

• Wei Zhang, East China Normal University