STUDIES IN TECHNICAL 33 AND VOCATIONAL

EDUCATION

The Impact of New JAPAN Technology on Technical

and Vocational Education

UNESCO

THE IMPACT OF NEW TECHNOLOGY

WITH A SPECIAL REFERENCE TO JAPANESE VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Shigeru NAKAYAMA

__-_.. . - . . . I

__ - - .

Published in 1991 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 7, place de Fontenoy, 75700 PARIS Printed by Unesco

ED-91/WS-2 @ Unesco 1987 Printed in France

PREFACE

The present document is a further addition to the series "Studies in Technical and Vocational Education". These studies are based on a Unesco policy instrument, the Revised Recommendation concerning Technical and Vocational Education, which was adopted by the General Conference at its eighteenth session in November 1974. Furthermore, they are in conformity with the Approved Programmes and Budget which envisaged the production of guides, studies and other publications in the field of technical and vocational education. The studies are intended to assist policy-makers, planners, administrators and experts in technical and vocational education. They reflect Unesco's concern with fostering an effective exchange of experiences and ideas in this field as well as Member States* efforts in promoting the implementation of the Revised Recommendation and the Convention on Technical and Vocational Education and the development and expansion in this field of education.

The studies, which have been prepared under contract for Unesco should be considered as information documents that would assist national authorities and specialists in technical and vocational education. A list of the studies is on the inside of the cover of this document.

We wish to express our appreciation to the author(s) who have prepared this study and hope that it will provide its readers with information useful to them in the promotion and development of technical and vocational education.

The views expressed in this study are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of Unesco. The designations employed and the presentation of the material do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Unesco Secretariat concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

The mention of specific companies or manufacturer's products does not imply that they are endorsed or recommended by Unesco in preference to others of similar nature which are not mentioned.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1. EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND . 7

The Model Change of Japanese Universities during the Occupation

. . . . .,,,...., . 7

From Elite to Mass Universities

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Expansion of higher education during the Occupation

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Cheap universities

. . . . . . . 14

Selection rather than education

. . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Egalitarianism --- toward homogenization of scientists

Graduate schools

,.... ,.. ..,,..,,,.

Process of lnternalrzation

,., .., . .

Numerus clausus

.,........... ..~...,.. ............... 24

Training of industrial scientists

Manpower policy during high economic growth

2

Industrial demands for scientific manpower

. . . . . . . . . . . ,..

Abandonment of Egalitarian Policy: Higher Technical

School

Role of private universities

. . . .,,...,,,,,.,..

The Realities of the science and technology boom

29

29

31

32

35

CHAPTER 2. IMPACT OF NEW TECHNOLOGY

Microelectronics Revolution

MITl’s strategy

,,,,....,,...,,...,,...,,.....,...,. ..,,...,,...,,..

Negative aspects of the microelectronic revolution

,,,....,..,,,...,,...,......,........,,...,........

Entrance into unemployed society?

., ., .., ., . . . . . . .., . . . . . .

Microprocessor’s influence on tertiary industry in the

West

38

39

42

43

Effect of Word Processors in Japan

. . .., . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Effect of Robotics and NC Machine tools ---

Japanese case

. . . . .

Technology of quality: influence on the Third World

Work Alienation

Quality of Work --- a new-left solution

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .., ., .

Privacy problems --- Centralization or decentralization

New Media Age

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Mechanism of information capitalism --- Exploitation

of Scientific Workers

47

49

52

58

. 61

CHAPTER 3. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

. . . . . ., ., . .., .., ., .., ., ..,

Computer literacy

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .,

Business initiatives of computer schools

66

. 66

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .._................. 66

Senshu gakko (special-training schools)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .._.

The Response of the Education establishment

The reaction of the public sector

From Bureaucracy to business model of Education?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The balance between the oublic and private education

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Intrinsic problems in computer teaching

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Teachability of a new technology

Vicissitudes of discipline

Curriculum Reform possible?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Generational choice

. . . . . . . .

68

. 71

73

75

77

78

78

a0

. a2

a3

CHAPTER 4. PROSPECT

. . ., . . . . . . . . . . . a4

The Centre Always Shifts

Problems with Language

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a5

“Centre-periphery hypothesis” in science

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a6

Events in Germany in the 1920’s

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . aa

Problems of Human Resources

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a9

From USA to where?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Problems with Language

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .., . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ., . . 91

Centre-shift of Industrial Science

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Computer language

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Human Resources Problems

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Migration of scientific leadership

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

American science or Asian science

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Japan stagnated?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

s

CHAPTER 1. EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

The Model Change of Japanese Universities during the Occupation

Since Japan was neither colonized nor dominated by a single Western

power before the World War II, there was no colonial-type authority to enforce

adoption of a particular existing foreign model, which contrasts sharply with the

postwar Japanese experience during the American occupation period of 1946-

1952.

Western models for Japanese universities were a favourite topic of

discussion among Japanese academics and it is generally believed that prewar

Japanese public universities are modelled after German universities, If we

examine this belief closely, we will find it not exactly correct, as the predominant

German influence came a little later in the 1660s except for medical school, while

American, British and French models had been influential in earlier periods in

forming basic institutional structure, such as the rigid residence requirement. The

truth is that in the 1670s Japanese bureaucrats investigated and ‘window-

shopped’ various Western models, mixed them together and filled them into the

Japanese mould of bureaucracy.

While the Western models of universities have a tradition older than the

bureaucratic system of modern states, modern Japanese universities of Western

style are purely a product of the Meiji government. They were developed as an

integral part of Japanese bureaucracy. Thus, the true model of a Japanese

university is not that of any particular university of a particular Western country

but of bureaucracy.*

In the postwar period, Japan was ‘involved’ in adopting the American

model of education. In contrast to other non-Western countries, where a colonial

involvement mode came first, followed by a window-shopping mode in the

postwar period, the Japanese experience was exactly the opposite and therefore

quite unique. While the former pattern is the transition from ‘dependency to

autonomy’3, the Japanese experience was one which was diametrically opposed.

Before the advent of postwar American influence, the Japanese had already

established their own bureaucratic model. The way the American model and

concepts have infiltrated this bureaucratic model is one of the major topics of the

present chapter.

‘Democracy’ and ‘Egalitarianism’ were translated in a higher education

context into the transition from elite to mass education. During the Occupation

period, bureaucracy reluctantly accepted this trend that to some extent prepared

and preemptively met later expansion of demand for higher education. It also

resulted in creating a ‘cheap universities’ tradition. Bureaucracy insists on plan-

rationalisation and numerus clausus rather than meeting market demand, and

further expansion in the high growth period was left to the private sector.

‘Decentralization’ was dismissed, on the ground that local governments lacked

resources to handle matters of higher education. ‘Lay control’ was denied to

* It is more so in adopting bureaucratic centralized system of university governance in cases of former Japanese colonial universities in Seoul and Taipei. Sungho Lee, “The emergence of the modern university in Korea” P.G. Altbach and

V. Selvaratnam eds. From deoendence to autonomv: the development of Asian universities (Kluwer, 1989).

3 This is the title of Altbach & Selvatram but many of Asian scholars would feel uneasy using the word ‘dependency’ as we find culture-bound nature of education in China, Korea, Thailand and elsewhere.

avoid capitalistic and militaristic influence on campus.

Under the circumstances mentioned above, I shall explore within the

theme how Japanese academic science and technology has evolved.

From Elite to Mass Universities

By the mid-twentieth century, Japan had firmly established its own

institutional paradigm of higher education and hence, its replacement with a new

American model could not be done without the application of extraordinary

pressure by the Occupation Forces. Educational reform differs in certain

aspects during the postwar occupations of Germany and Japan. An old elite

Japanese who had sympathy toward European education said that while

Germany refused to accept the American model of postwar reform, the cowardly

Japanese accepted it without any sign of resistance. The fact is that, even

though the Occupation Forces consisted of representatives of several Allied

powers, the occupation of Japan was administered almost exclusively by the US,

in contrast to the occupation of Germany, where French delegates were opposed

to the introduction of the American model only. Thus, it was not an indigenous

reform but one enforced by the Civil Information and Education tit@lE) of the

American Occupation and their advisor, the American Educational Mission, for

whom it was simply inconceivable to propose any model other than the American

one, with which they were the most familiar.

Americans viewed the power of the Japanese prewar educational system as

being too centralized. They seemed to entertain the idea of disbanding the

Ministry of education, the hub of the power structure. But the American

Occupation was carried out through existing Japanese offices in order to

maintain a form of indirect means of governing. They advised the Japanese

higher education reformers to create the University Accreditation Association in

1947, which was instrumental in the initial step toward higher education reform in

the American mode.4 The relationship between the American CIE and the

Japanese Ministry of Education was an ambivalent one.

The Association was active in setting the goal of and guiding postwar

university reform in its first decade but actual inspection and evaluation of new-

system universities were carried out by the University Chartering Committee (later

renamed Council) organized by the Ministry of Education. Still later, its function

was transfered to the Ministry of Education, which enacted the Standards for

University Chartering in 1956.’

In history, human resources matters can never be handled as planned.

The Americans gave up their original intention and withdrew their proposals,

when Japanese opposition was so strong. They intended the abolition of

university chair systems but failed. Their proposal of the introduction of the

American-style Board of Trustees as the governing body of public universities

was ruled out, in view of the opposition of Japanese authorities who insisted

upon the autonomy of the individual universities6

Their fundamental purpose of reform was the replacement of ultra-

nationalistic and militaristic ideology with democratic thought. As discussed in

4 General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, Civil Information and Education Section, Education Division, Education (Tokyo, May 1946, typewriter printing) p.273 ff.

5 Hiaher Education in oostwar iaoan pp.9-10.

’ Daiaaku kiiun kvokai iunenshi (Ten years’ history of the Japanese Association of University Accreditation, 1957) pp 49-57.

Chapter 2, the democratization trend was, in principle, accepted by most of

university scientists, who were never ultranationalists, nor militarists. In

implementing the American model, however, economic difficulty arose.

Exoansion of hiaher education durina the Occuoation

In prewar Japan, graduates of higher education comprised fewer than 7

percent of the age cohort and hence their education was naturally elitist. The

prestigious Imperial and other national Universities, enrolling less than 1 percent

of the age cohort, was the site of most prewar academic science, where the old

German Humboldt ideal of unification of research and teaching was to be

maintained.

In 1946, the first United States Education Mission to Japan advocated a

single-track, 6-3-3-4 school system, instead of the prewar 6-5-3-3 system. They

also advocated that the Japanese expand their higher education sector to the

extent that each prefecture (46 in number) would have its own university,

apparently modelled after state universities in the USA. While prewar

universities were located in major cities, the egalitarian principle of equal

opportunity to higher education was being realized with decentralization of

educational facilities to include the new provincial middle sized cities.

Incorporating this strategy into its planning, a significant expansion of

higher education was proposed by the Ministry of Education with pressure from

the Occupation Forces, in spite of the economic hardship that prevailed after

Japan’s defeat in the war. It generated numerous complaints and a great deal

of confusion in the Japanese academia.

In actual practice, the last two steps (3-3 years) in the old education

system were now to be convened into the last 4 (universities) in the new system.

This move certainly created a great opportunity for the old professional schools

(the third step of 3 years training in old system) and normal schools to raise their

status to university level. They took advantage of the opportunity and most

were successful in obtaining accreditation at the university level.

Private sector education was still more aggressive, flexible and adjustable.

Twelve private universities, mainly in the Kansai area, announced that they were

ready to start as new-system universities in April, 1946, prior to the adoption in

the following year by public sector schools.

Consequently, the Japanese higher education sector was expanded, within

a few years, into a scale exceeding ten times that of the prewar standard in

terms of the number of universities, students and teaching staff.

The prewar multiplication of universities, which was taken place nearly

every decade after major wars, had always brought new perspectives and new

meaning into the Japanese academic sector, such as the introduction of new

disciplines and the enrolment of women students that was not available in older

universities.’ In contrast, no new-system university during the postwar

expansion created any new perspectives and meaning (perhaps with a sole

exception of the creation of International Christian University, which has been run

in a purely American way) but assimilated themselves to older universities in

order to be accredited and conferred university charter. They could by no

means breathe fresh air into the existing scientific community as the newly-

created Imperial universities had done earlier. If we take it intoto, however, a

new model of university was certainly created: that is cheap, democratic and

’ Shigeru Nakayama, ‘The role played by universities in scientific and technological development in Japan”, Journal of World History vol.lX (1965) pp.344- 356.

hollow mass higher education, in the demise of old institutions of elites, by elites

and for elites.

Cheat universities

Since the inception of the modern Japanese university system in the late

nineteenth century, the demand for higher education from the grassroots sector

has been constantly rising, often overtaking the planning and preparation of

facilities by the public sector. It was, however, nearly impossible to plan such a

rapid expansion at the time when old facilities had not yet been recovered from

the destruction of wartime air-raids. Most of the energy of faculties and students

was spent maintaining their own subsistence. These new-system universities

were naturally very poorly equipped in terms of both teaching staff and facilities.

The government budget, throughout the postwar period, simply could not

cope with the expansion of higher education a situation which inevitably invited

the impoverishment of universities and university research. The Ministry of

Education commented this state of affairs: “Since the installations and equipment

were in this condition, it was inevitable that the operating expenses of the

universities were reduced to a bare minimum, and since most of the available

revenue had to be spent for salaries of faculty members, special allowances,

maintenance expenses and administration, the sums used to educate students

and to carry on research activities were really nominal.“’

The traditional academic elites, whose concept of higher education was

still elite-centred, criticized these new universities as being second-rate and

e Hiaher Education in Postwar Jaoan: the Ministrv of Educatioon’s 1964 White PaDer (edited and translated by John E. Blewett, S.J., Sophia University Press, Tokyo, 1965), p.17.

expressed their grave concern at the deterioration of the quality of university

research and teaching. Confusion and misunderstanding of old elites on the

new system had lasted for more than ten years.

Extraordinary expansion of higher education under an extraordinarily

devastating economic condition resulted in major change on the traditional

function of universities. University faculties wished to maintain the high

academic standing that was expected from elite students in the old system.

Those elites were qualified to study by themselves in the old German way of

academic freedom without being instructed into the American educational style of

spoonfeeding. Whereas such an elite student culture could no more been

maintained in new mass universities, faculties have not developed the American

way of teaching, leaving non-elite students untrained and uneducated. Students

consequently seem to be at sea about what they should aim for. University

teachers who had little interest in training students too easily give credits and

diplomas, as compared to the practise of American universities. Consequently,

universities were transformed into mass-production based cheap diploma mills ,

cheap in quality and cheap in expense as well.

This notion of cheap university in facilities as well as in the quality of

education, which is rooted in postwar economic misery, are lingering even into

later days of affluence, which certainly contributed to the impoverishment of

university researches in comparison with private industrial research laboratories.

If we compare the laboratory expenditure (per chair) of experimental science of

major governmental universities that existed in prewar time with the consumer

price index, we find that university research in terms of budget has suffered for a

long period, unable to catch up with postwar inflation, only to recover the prewar

standard of 1935 in the late 1960s. on-experimental course may not recover,

while the research budget of postwar new-system universities are still far inferior

to those of old universities.

Selection rather than education

Non-elite student bodies assembled in new universities spent their four-years

with freedom and looseness, emancipated from preparation for severe college

entrance examinations. As Japanese universities are hierarchically arranged

according to quality of excellence, what university one can enter nearly

determines one’s future career and hence all primary and secondary educations

were geared to this end. Perhaps, the most important function of Japanese

universities is selection and labelling of student quality at the time of entrance

examination rather than the four-years of education. Personnel officers of

Japanese corporations, who are major employers of college graduates, evaluate

selection function only and pay little attention to student achievement in their four

years university education.

Foreign observers praise pre-tertiary education as superb in contrast to

the poor quality of university education, while internal criticism of ‘examination

hell’ prevails in the mass media, attacking the ‘inhuman formalism’ of preparation

for examination in secondary school that kills students’ creativity and aspirations.

Japanese high school education was internationally praised in an international

comparison of mathematical scores conducted by UNESCO, in which Japanese

excellence was shown9 Japanese high school students are perhaps strong in

subjects like mathematics, which require, more than any other subjects in school

’ This is particularly strong in the American educational community, who propose to upgrade high-school achievement standards by focusing attention on their ‘hypothetical enemy’ in industrial competition.

_-

examinations, a certain amount of step-by-step preparation, without which even a

mathematical genius could not be counted. School mathematics is merely an

indication of testing one’s studiousness in pseudo-problem-solving of an

unrealistic game, rather than that of genuine creativity. High achievement may

be correlated to their later career in scientific professions but those Japanese

scientists who are tested by school mathematics may be good in solving given

problems in normal scientific activity rather than giving and finding problems.

On the other hand, students can enjoy four years of non-regimented

freedom in their young sensitive days, between earlier examination hell and later

disciplined life in ‘Japan Incorporated’. though four years is considered to be too

long a vacation. Like everywhere else, however, Japanese science and

technology students are genrally kept much busier than students in humanities

and social sciences as new disciplines are added up on top of the old required

courses and curriculum is overcrowded.

Eaalitarianism --- toward homooenization of scientists

Before World War II, different tracks of education were designated for

those who terminated their training in the primary, secondary or professional

school (junior college) levels, largely depending on students’ social class origin.

Hence, there were three levels of engineering: secondary, professional school

and university graduates. Even in the field of medicine, practitioners were

divided into two classes: university graduates and professional school graduates,

despite the fact that both received the same medical license. This complicated

plural track of education was changed to a single track under the egalitarian

policy of the American advisors. In the same spirit, the status of private

universities and women’s colleges was enhanced. Normal schools were given

college status.

In reality, however, in view of the short period of preparation and the lack

of facilities, it was impossible for the new universities to obtain the resources

necessary to rise to the standard that had existed under the old system. Thus,

in spite of the creation of a new university system, the unequal pattern of

resource distribution that characterized the old system remained essentially

unaltered.” There are differences in the quality of students between the

descendants of old elite universities and new-system provincial or private

universities.

In the meantime, however, the nature of universities has undergone major

changes from the elite university to mass higher education.

Hindsight allows us to see that these new institutions preemptively

prepared the way for the dramatic expansion of higher education that took place

in the postwar years all over the world. One of the causes of the student

revolts of the late 1960’s in the Western industrial countries was interpreted as

being due to overcrowding in universities. As far as the scale of student

admission is concerned, the Japanese universities suffered less than their

European counterparts because the expansion had started earlier.

To the people, universities are no longer ivory towers, inaccessible to the

grassroots sector, but transformed to “around-the-corner” institutions. At the

same time, it created a public notion that higher education is cheap, that it can

be affordable without great financial burden on the part of the public as well as

“lkuo Amano, “Continuity and Change in the Structure of Japanese Higher Education”, W. K. Cummings, I. Amano, and K. Kitamura (eds.) Chanaes in Jaoanese Universitv: A Comparative Perspective (New Yorrk, Praeger, 1978) p.38.

the individual

Such a mass-production system of cheap higher education largely

characterizes features of present-day Japanese science and technology --- not

the high elite science of Britain, not the glamorous capital-intensive science of the

USA, but a ‘Kentucky fried’ commercial science”.

Graduate schools

The American is a successful system to promote science, a fact which is

nearly unanimously acknowledged in the American scientific community. When

they argue on the shortcomings of American scientific education, their criticism

centres at secondary education but never at graduate schools. Therefore,

graduate school must have been most welcome among various components of

the compelling American model.

It is noteworthy to find the foundation of a Japanese graduate school

affiliated to the Imperial University as early as 1666. Its model might have been

an American one, given the fact that such a system existed nowhere else at the

time. As far as we can see in its early rules, the system resembles those of

American graduate schools then in the process of making in such matters as the

course work requirements and doctoral degree program connected closely tied

with graduate schools.

The attempt was premature and soon turned out to be ineffective. Thus,

Japanese graduate courses were not structurally well-developed throughout the

” The name ‘Kentucky fried’ science is derived from an Australian TV program, “Kentucky fried medicine” (1989), in which the privatization trend of socialized medicine was critically assessed. In my application, however, I do imply not only a negative but a rather positive sense of the word, namely, that Japanese postwar science and scientists have been cheaply maaa-produced and well quality-controlled, resulting in science which Is orlented toward the consumer market only and Is, therefore, ‘science for profit’.

prewar era. Doctoral degrees were conferred by the Faculty Conference, without

having had any institutional relationship whatsoever with the graduate school.

No course works were designed for the graduate school, which functioned

merely as the ‘waiting-for-job period’ in most of university departments. It

remained an elusive institution, a remnant of a policy failure.

After the war, the American Scientific Mission, rather than the Education

Mission, strongly urged that graduate schools be reformed.12 The CIE of the

Occupation Forces had formulated the model of the American graduate school

system and provided guidance through a newly formed Japanese agency, the

Japanese Association of University Accreditation.

There was little resistance on the part of existing Japanese universities,

because the old graduate school did not have any structure to conflict with the

newly introduced American one.

New graduate schools started in 1950 at private universities, which had

been always looking for a chance at expansion, and in 1953 at national

universities, the development of which was delayed by administrative rigidity.

Process of lnternalization

After the withdrawal of the Occupation Forces in 1952, the Ministry of

Education took over and strengthened its control over higher education.

However, after seven years of model change, it was utterly impossible to return

to the old model that had existed before World War II. The process of

internalization (in other words, domestication of the external American model) has

followed.

l2 “Reorganization of Science and TEchnology in Japan”, Report to the US National Academy of Science, issued in August 28, 1947.

- -.-- .__. --. -~ -- .---. --

The prototype of prewar Japanese universities was established in the late

nineteenth century in its unique characteristics, such as faculty-department

structure of universities. The minor changes that evolved were not enough to

meet the new demands of the mid-twentieth century. A radical reform was

desperately needed, regardless of its financial source.

The American model was not necessarily new, as it was also largely

formulated in the nineteenth century, but the newer elements were taken up by

the Japanese; notably, mass higher education. If the elitism of the Imperial

University still remained, it might appear to be grotesquely anachronistic now.

Other elements which were incompatible with Japanese higher education

culture were excluded from the reform process. Hence, decentralization was

discouraged in the period of internalization that followed and layman control was

totally dismissed out of public universities.

In higher education, academic decision-making power which resided in the

Faculty Conference of each faculty, which is organized on the basis of

undergraduate teaching, remained intact. The efforts of reformers had been

focused on the introduction of new models in general education and graduate

school, new areas where old faculties had no vested interest. Thus, graduate

schools had been given no autonomous power, remaining mere subsidiary to the

organizations for undergraduates. Graduate programs are not well funded and

graduate fellowships and assistantships do not adequately cover living expenses.

Most of them support themselves by training high school students for college

entrance examinations.

At the beginning of new-system graduate school of the University of

Tokyo, a new division (humanities. social science, mathematics, physical,

chemical and biological sciences) was introduced to promote interdisciplinary

research in contrast to the old faculties of law, economics, literature, science,

technology and agriculture. But because the major decision-making power still

resides in the Faculty Conference of the old facultires, the structure of are now

subordinated to the old faculties division.

Most faculty members had no experience of study in the USA and hence were

not well aware of strong points of American graduate programs. Hence, reading

assignments, grade system associated with fellowship program and other

infrastructure of the American graduate school are even now hardly systematized.

Furthermore, it may be partly a matter of culture that the Japanese have failed

to create a highly competitive atmosphere, as was the case in the U.S., even

after more than three decades of its existence.

However, in the fields of science and technology, where greater

internationalization, greater than social sciences and humanities, has occurred,

new graduate schools based on the American model are more readily accepted.

The graduate schools will continue to expand, since it can meet the future

demands of sciene and technology, as well as the desire of raising the status of

old faculties which control degree conferring authority.

Numerus clausus

Since the new-system is not the product of spontaneous growth but rather

the importation of an external model, there remained an old rigid bureaucratic

model in regulations such as the prescribed residence of two years for master’s

course plus the three years doctoral program along with a numerus clausus, the

remnant of bureaucratic model, for each discipline, irrespective of the subject of

the major and individual ability of candidates. Only in late 198Os, more flexible

graduate courses as existed in the USA are contemplated.

As the system is not adjustable to market demands but planned in

bureaucracy to coordinate and maintain the status quo of existing disciplines,

such a rigidity does not meet the request of the changing research frontier and

the demand from the industrial as well as the grassroots sectors. It was

effective in suppressing newly forming disciplines and protecting declining ones

at academia.

A notorious example is found in the preservation of agricultural disciplines, to

which, during the economic high growth in 1960s students were no longer

attracted (perhaps except agricultural chemistry, which has large industrial

application) and the nation’s agricultural population was dropped. Thanks to

numerus clausus of teachers and students, these declining disciplines has been

well protected. Since the discipline was not attractive, less students came to

major and numerus clausus was often not filled up. Still, posts of teachers were

preserved so that those who majored in an unattractive discipline had better

chance in academia in the future. In this way, the reproduction cycle of old

disciplines are repeated without being bothered by the pressure of external

society. Only in the 1970s ecologically minded students and, in the 1960s

biotechnology inspired students, were attracted by agricultural disciplines.

Whilst undergraduate numerus clausus is filled up, those of graduate

schools are usually not, except popular disciplines like physics and astronomy.

The social evaluation of the quality of a student is determined mostly by the

prestige of the university in which he was enrolled as an undergraduate as a

mUIt of university entrance examination, while attendance in a graduate study

does not add much prestige except in an academic career. Hence, the

Japanese graduate school is far less developed than those of Western

countries. The ratio of graduate students to undergraduates is much lower in

Japan compared with major Western nations. This is also the cause of the

‘Kentucky fried’ cheapness of Japanese science.

Trainina of industrial scientists

Industrial sector supports the Master’s program in providing special

fellowship with the understanding that after the program candidates are

guaranteed and obliged to be employed in sponsoring industries, Company

engineers are also sent to

graduate schools to obtain Master’s degrees. In industry, those Master’s degree

holders in science and engineering are mostly industrial scientists, who are

mostly assigned the works in R & 0 and design departments, while Bachelor’s

degree holders are sent to the production line, though job transfers between

them are frequent. According to the corporation’s evaluation, Doctorates

(Doctor of Science or Doctor of Engineering, Ph.D. equivalent) are not welcome

in industry as they were too narrowly specialized and too academically oriented

to be industrial scientists, except those who are appointed for specific research

that the company needs. Hence a master’s program has developed,

particularly in engineering school, to meet the demands of the private sector (half

of all master’s degrees are given to engineering students), whilst the doctor’s

program has not.

One small episode. Based on Chemical Abstracts, there is a statistical

study on the productivity of scientific articles according to institutions.13

Surprisingly, many Japanese universities, Universities of Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka,

” IDE

--

come within the best ten of the world. This is interpreted by Japanese scientists

as follows: no matter how quality goes, Master’s degree candidates in Japanese

universities are encouraged to publish articles on their research topics, which

were given by supervisory professors.

Degree works are not related to the salary scale and other benefit of

company employees; two years of Master’s degree work is counted equal to two

years of experience at the company on their seniority promotion system.

All of the above contributed to the formation of the character of postwar

Japanese industrial science to be discussed in Chapter IV.

The way in which companies evaluate academic degrees has not

undergone great change during 1960s to 1980s. though in the meantime high

technology requirements certainly upgraded the academic qualifications of

industrial scientists. The academic sector. the faculty of science and

engineering schools, claim that the high standard of the contemporary frontier

cannot be caught up merely with the training of merely bachelor’s degree, and

proposed to upgrade all of training for scientists and engineers to a Master’s

Degree program. Some industrial sectors believe that they can do inhouse

training much better than universities can do, but they have to have some tie with

educational institutions for the supply and recruitment of new scientific manpower

rather than the content of university research and education,

MANPOWER POLICY DURING HIGH ECONOMIC GROWTH

Contrary to the common belief, postwar Japanese government did not

have a comprehensive science policy, as far as R & D policy in concerned.

MIT1 was a protector and adviser of domestic industries but not primarily a

performer of industrial science. The Science and Technology Agency sought to

promote a big national project but remained a small office. The Ministry of

Education is the promoter of academic science but isolated from the industrial

sector. What is missing here, most of all, is the coordination among various

government offices in formulating an integral science policy.

If they had a policy at all, it was a scientific manpower (increase) policy of the

Ministry of Eduction, which had monopolistic power on the nation’s education.

Their prominent policy was implemented in accordance to the demand made by

the industrial sector in the high economic growth period.

Manpower policy during high economic growth

Industrial demands for scientific manoower

As Japanese industry recovered, there appeared from the industrial sector

a demand for a more scientifically trained manpower. The trend of postwar

technological innovation accelerated this demand still further.

In response to the industrial demand, the Ministry of Education made the

first systematic calculation of future demand in 1957.14 It coincided with the

year of Sputnik when worldwide science and technology started.

Based on the above calculation, the Ministry of Education announced the

plan increase science and technology students enrolment by 8,000 on top of

22,000 numerus clausus (entrance quota) in 195715. The plan was

implemented year by year and completed in a four-years cycle from entrance to

graduation ‘n 1960.

l4 Hiaher Education in Postwar Jaoan p.64f.

l5 Yearly statistics of student number is available in Hiaher Education in oostwar JaDan pp.1 54-155

It is the Ministry of Education who controls and sets numerus clausus of

student enrolment in each university, but to accomplish their plan, private

universities were called upon to cooperate in their science and engineering

students increase plan, since the public sector did not have a sufficient budget to

create the students increase in national universities under the direct control of the

Ministry of Education.

In October 1960, the Council for Science and Technology reported ten-

year plan of science and technology promotion, in which immediate expansion of

science and techjnology students was made to be imperative. Demands of

industrial sector for the quality and quantity of higher education in science and

technology were further accelerated.ln November, Kansai Keidanren proposed the

university reform in which specialization of technology teaching is emphasized.

In December, the Education Committee of Nikkeiren (Federation of Japanese

Economy) demanded the creation of technical universities. All of these

emphasized the necessity of specialist education in universities who can meet the

industrial demand.

Following this increase of 8,000, another plan for expansion was begun in

1961, since the plan for doubling the national income announced in that year

called for 170,000 more scientists and engineers during the years 1960 and 1970

than would otherwise graduate.

The estimate of a shortage of 170,000 was reached by the Ministry of

Education as a conclusion from research made on the educational background

of men in various types of enterprise; the number of those presently employed

who would be retired as well as of those necessary to bring to realization of the

economic development plan; the anticipated number of graduates in science and

s

technology under the then existing circumstances.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Education in 1961 launched a plan to increase

enrollments in sciene and engineering departments by 16,000 on top of 1961

numerus clausus, 30,000. This figure was reached on the assumption that a

demand would increase gradually every year during the 1960’s. An increase of

16,000 students would cover the gap of 170,000 between supply and demand in

four years.

Taking a round number, the Ministry of Education announced to increase

a target number of 20,000 science and engineering students in September 1961

to be completed by 1964. This was actually attained in three years and entrance

quota of science and engineering students reached 51,140 in 1963. More than

half of the second increase plan of scientific manpower depended on private

universities.”

Abandonment of Eaalitarian Policv: Hither Technical School

One of the major features in postwar eudcational reform was, as

mentioned earlier, the promotion of egalitarianism as exemplified in the change

from plural to single truck in education. Such an idealistic approach was

challenged by the industrial sector, who demanded the alteration of the

egalitarian system to meet their immediate need for scientific manpower. The

industrial sector’s view ultimately led to the estqblishment of higer technical

schools to train lower class industrial scientists and engineers.

In April 1961, a bill for partial amendment of the School Education Law

was presented to the 38th Diet. Enacted into law it resulted in the inauguration

l6 Higher Education in Postwar Japan, pp.65-67.

---

of higher technical schools (junior college standard) in 1962.”

Concomitantly in this amendment, there was another kind of hidden

demand of the industrial sector. In the preceding 1960, the Japanese anti-

American, anti-establishment student movement against the renewal of US-Japan

Security Treaty came to a peak. To avoid such ideological ‘contamination’ of

their prospective employees, the industrial sector wished to have a school to train

those obedieent to company hierarchy, technically-minded, pure and innocent,

intainted by university student culture. The graduates of these schools were to

be treated more favourably in the employment of enterprises than college

graduates. At least in the beginning of the system, there are more applicants

than they expected.

The industrial sector was much short-sighted in fulfilling their immediate

needs. When economic recession come, those graduates of higher technical

schools suffered in finding adequate jobs. They also discounted the upgrading

trend for higher education in the grassroots. More students would prefer to go

to universities, which was met by newly rising science and technology schools of

private universities.

Role of private universities

Japanese universities were created within the public sector in the late-

nineteenth century, but after the World War I the government could not cope

with, nor finance the increasing demand for higher education among people; they

chartered university status to private schools. Since then, private universities

had developed to the extent that the number of their students doubled that of

” Higher Education in Postwar JaDan p.66.

public sector universities already in prewar time.”

Higher education of science and technology, however, could hardly be

maintained in private sector, as its facilities are much more costly than humanities

and social sciences, which could not be affordable with students’ tuition only.

Hence, it was a tradition for the government to be the sole sponsor of science

and technology training since the birth of modern universities in Japan. During

the prewar period, a few major private schools, Doshisha, Waseda and Keio,

sustained science and engineering schools but they are only occasional

exceptions. An overall prewar picture was that science and technology was a

state-sponsored activity not only in education and training but also in research.

In responding the demand from the industrial sector, the Ministry of

Education, as they could not increase their own budget so rapidly in public

sector, turn to private sector and encourage private universities by subsidizing

and giving chartering. This policy is somewhat parallel to MITl’s science policy,

if they have any.

The first response was the Special Subsidy for Private University Science

Education started in 1956. This was a subsidy amounting 50 percent of the

partial cost of equipment for student use in science schools. To this, a new

subsidy was added in 1956 to further the plan for fostering sciene and

technology education. It was designed to provide aid for the establishment of

enlarging of schools of science and engineering. It was on a two-to-one

matching basis, the school providing one-third of the total.

The subsidy at first was limited to universities, but the sciene departments

of junior colleges were included in 1959, followed by the newly established higher

‘s Statistics in Hiaher Education in Postwar Japan

technical schools in 1962. This type of assistance, has increased every year.lg

In instituting new schools and increasing the number of numerus clausus,

public and private universities had been provisionally required to consult

beforehand with the Minister of Education, who in turn consult their University

Chartering Committee, consisting of old professiionals. They tried to maintain

old criteria of qualification strictly and often intimidate the proponents of university

reform. They are particularly strict on private universities, whose economic

provisions are dubious,

In 1962, this procedure became no longer necessary. The reason for the

change was in part that the Director of Science and Technology Agency (STA). in

connection with the plan for training scientific technicians to assist in carrying out

the program of doubling the national income (March, 1961) advised the Minister

of Education to take this step.20 Since then, universities , relying chiefly on their

own judgment can far easily increase the number of schools and students. In

this respect, the expansion of private universities is remarkable.2’

In addition to the government subsidies, contributions from industries were

made available from early in the 1960’s and helped to maintain science schools.

Some of the schools at private universities are a transition from professional

schools (junior college standing) established during the war to meed wartime

demand, while others are allied to bir corporations.

” hiaher education p.84-85.

2o Normally, the sectionalistic practise of Japanese bureaucracy makes it impossible to interfere or advise on other bureaus’ conduct, but at the top minister level it is exceptional as they are not career bureaucrats but politicials of the ruling party (Liberal Democratic Party). In other words, only through this top level channel, STA can influence on the Ministryu of Education policy.

21 Hiaher Education in Postwar Japan pp.25-26.

Most of the private universities are permitted to create postgraduate

courses, as the government are under no obligation to share in the costs. If the

increase of science and engineering schools and postgraduate courses in private

universities have not contributed to academic science to the same extent as have

done older national universities, they have neverthless influenced on the

economic high growth by providing middle-class engineers to the industrial

sector. Less favored are the biological sciences, and, especially, the agricultural

sciences owing to the modernization of Japanese agrkculture and the conversion

of agricultural departments into industrial ones(e.g., agricultlural chemistry, food

processing, etc.).

The Realities of the science and technoloov boom

Post-Sputnik science and technology boom is now a legendary talk of old

American scientists. Their first topic is rubbishly spect R & D expendiure, and

secondly on the expansioin of s. The Japanese boom did not appear to be

dramatical rise of R & D efforts but mainly means the rapid growth of scientific

manpower to serve for the industrial sectors.

For individual scientists and engineers, the boom do not necessarily mean

the rapid rise of their status and work conditions. The rise of power of the

scientific sector may be compensated by the loss of rarity value of each member.

Science and engineering graduates were easier to find employment at the time

when they are needed but once an economic recession come, graduates (such

as of higher technical schools) had been treated with difficulty.

Such being the case, the science and technology boom was promoted

mainly in public and private sectors along with their own purpose, but the

grassroots sector do not necessarily respond to as they wish. High economic

grwoth has certainly resulted in the high demand for higher education on the part

of the grassroots. While public schools were so planned to meet the demand of

the industrial sector to increase science students enrollment, private universities,

on which market mechanism is at work, increased non-science students as well.

In spite of public and private effort to lure students into science and technology,

many turned their back to science in preference to humanities and social

sciences,

CHAPTER 2. IMPACT OF NEW TECHNOLOGY

In the present framework of society, a new science and technology is

promoted by a technocracy and assessed by a democracy. New technology is

the source of major social change in contemporary society. Whether the change

is judged good or bad depends upon the value systems within the different

social sectors. The new technology is developed in the technocratic, public and

private sectors for the benefit of its own sector. When the influence of the

technology reaches other sectors, assessment will almost always vary between

sectors, though the long term consequences of the new technology are rarely

immediately foreseeable. In such a case, the critical assessment by the citizenry

and academic sectors are legitimated. Their viewpoints are often represented by

science journalists and critical scholars. The academic sector will usually

attempt a neutral stance at the intersectorial debates, but close attention is sure

to disclose political leanings.

The social function of a critical, and sometimes pessimistic, academic

assessment is a warning of possible consequences rather than an outright

prediction of outcome. Consequently, such an assessment should be evaluated

not in terms of accuracy of prediction, but rather through its power as an

important political tool to promote the needs and desires of the citizenry sector

over the economic rationalists. Recent debates on microelectronics are typical

of such an intersectional strife.

Microelectronics Revolution

The advent, around 1978, of the new technology of microelectronics

caused a flurry of debate among science policy makers in Europe concerning

this new phenomenon, this ‘Microelectronic Revolution’. The present

conceptualization of ‘new technology’ usually includes biotechnology. However,

in the 19703, biotechnology was only beginning to have an impact on the world

scene.

The incidents and the term seem to have originated in the UK. The

British and EC establishments intended to impress their people by calling the R &

D of microelectronics a revolution, which had been predicted to be the seed of

the largest technological innovation in the next quarter century. Such

aggrandizement suggests a crisis consciousness within these countries of being

behind the USA and Japan, and excluded from a share of the world market. In

the UK, the slogan ‘microelectronics or bankruptcy’ appeared.

Microelectronics is, of course, not a new technology that appeared in the

late 1970s. It goes back to the research of a transistor by William B. Shockley

in prewar time, which was officially patented in 1948. Since then, the US

government has invested a great deal of public money on the R & D of

computers for military and space purposes and established itself as the outright

world-leader in IC (integrated circuit) and LSI (large-scale integrated circuit)

__-..

development. In the third quarter of the century, almost all important inventions

and innovations in semiconductor devices had been made in the United States.=

In the 1960% microelectronic technology developed dramatically as a

result of spin-offs from basic research related to military and space. In the 1970s

when this technology was commercialized for the production of consumer goods,

highly sophisticated and advanced military type technology, developed to meet

highly specialized conditions of high pressure, high temperature and so on, was

not useful for the purpose of everyday life. Thus, these two aspects of

technological developments, for military and consumer purposes, have become

increasingly independent.

While dependent on American frontier research, Japan in the meantime sought

to contest the USA in the development of commercial and consumer goods for

public consumption such as radios, TV sets and tape-recorders. Japan started to

produce IC’s in the mid- ’60s and overtook the USA in the total sale of consumer

electronics in the mid- ‘70~~~. In the same period, it became quite obvious that

Britain and the EC were far behind in the development of microelectronics, as

they adhered to a vacuum tube when a transistor became available, and started

to produce IC’s only around 1970.

MITl’s strateqy

From the 4970% MIT1 (Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry)

foresaw that Japanese technology of the type of middle-developed countries,

such as shipbuilding and textiles, appeared to be matched sooner or later by

22 Gregory, Japanese electronics technoloav, p.6.

23 Denshl koovo nenkan (Yearbook of electronic industry, Denpa Shinbunsha.1979). Yoshimura Sachio, IC sanavo daisenso (IC industrial warfare, Daiamondo. 1979)

NlEs like Korea and Hong Kong. This being the case, MIT1 found that the only

a way for Japanese technology to develop was to outstrip the high technology of

the USA. Consequently, MIT1 decided to change Japanese industrial structure to

align it with American-style industrial structure. The most notable American

technology is the high technology of aeronautics and microelectronics. Japan

was not able to compete with American aeronautics, since their aeronautics

industry has been afforded military support, a situation which is, of course,

constitutionally impossible in Japan. Hence, MIT1 decided to concentrate on

microelectronics.

To achieve this aim, MIT1 provided from 1971 to 1978, under the

Electronics Industry Promotion Temporary Measures Law, low-interest loans to

encourage the development and manufacturing of products such as numerically

controlled machinery and industrial robots.24

MIT1 also subsidised R & D of microelectronics, with such schemes as the

VLSI development project, started in 1976, with a considerable slice of the

national budget. Some 74 billion yen was spent, about 40 percent ot it

government money. This is a most unusual move since, in most cases, it was

postwar Japanese practice for R & D funding to hail from the private sector.

Hen@, it came to be nicknamed the Rising Sun (Hi-no-maru) computer project.

MITl’s typical method of support is as follows: MIT1 invites specialists from

several different corporations and academic sector as well, negotiate with them

on organizational arrangements, create a technology research association25 and

24 Morris-Suzuki, Bevond Comoutopia pp.29-30.

25 The idea of research association was introduced into Japan in early postwar period by the translation of J. D. Bernal Social Functions of Science originally published in 1939.

subsidize it by establishing a funding device of an auxilliary organization to be

able to spend public money flexibly26. Once R & D reaches after several years

the point at which business can be competitive in the marketplace, then the

association is disbanded and MIT1 leaves further development to market

competition. In this way, Japanese levels of technology development came

close to the American standards.

Thus, the USA and Japan started the national project of VLSI R & D and

actively competed against each other. Four years after its inception, Japanese

VLSI research association was officialy terminated successfully in 1980, when the

Japanese overtaking of US semiconductor tecyhnology was marked. With the

VLSI project, G. Gregory claims that ‘popular perceptions abroad, which cast

Japanese industry in the role of imitators, clearly were outdated.‘”

Several years behind Japan and the USA, European governments came to

recognize the wisdom of such an R & D policy and tried to get into the game in

the late 70s. UK and France started national VLSI h & D in 1988. UK and

West Germany began to spend public funds on microelectronics comparable to

the expenditures of the USA and Japan since c. 1979.

Negative aspects of the microelectronic revolution

An acute crisis within the European technocratic establishment was shared

by critical scholars but in an entirely different way.

26 Semi-governmental organ like Denshi shinko kyokai (Association of microelectronics promotion) played a major role in this function.

27 Gregory, Jaoanese electronic technology ppSO-51

The British Department of Industry commissioned a report dealing with

technological forecast to encourage the promotion of the microelectronic

industry. When the report came out in January, 1978, its conclusion stated that

it is more important to formulate a socio-economical measure to prevent grave

social consequences such as unemployment rather than a technology policy to

promote a computer industry. The Department of Industry refused to publish

this report but since then the content of the report has provided the basis of the

subsequent debate on the social impact of electronics.‘*

There are three conceivable major types of negative social impact of

computers:

1. unemployment

2. work alienation

3. infringement of privacy in a controlled society.

1. The threat of unemployment was, without delay, taken up by labor

unions as the issue of greatest concern. Demands for the shortening of work

hours and increase of paid holidays were a regular feature in line with their anti-

rationalization movement. 2. work alienation problems are also a matter of

negotiation between managements and unions but it is rather difficult to manage

in terms of traditional demand items of labour unions: it is a new problem to be

dealt with by new-left oriented rank and file workers with the support of ecologist

groups and the Green Party. 3. privacy problems, it is argued in the wider

social context, is a choice between a centralized or decentralized social regime at

the contact space of the public administrative sector vis-a-vis the grassroots

2* lann Barron & Ray Curnow, The future with microelectronics (Frances Printer, 1979).

sector.

Entrance into unemoloved societv?

Microorocessor’s influence on tertiarv industrv in the West

‘Micro’-electronics is cheap and microscopically small and hence its effects

are not as obvious as those of the products of macroengineering. But because of

its microscopic nature, it penetrates into every corner on the earth and permeates

every aspect of society.

Among the invisible, the most visible effect may be that the introduction of

industrial robots containing microcomputers into the manufacturing sector

accelerates production and, consequently, invites mass unemployment in

secondary industry. Less visible, but perhaps more important, is the

permeation of microelectronics into tertiary industry via office automation,

threatening redundancy of typists, secretaries, clearks and even managers.

Office automation began in Western countries where typewriters were

widely used. Through the conversion to word-processors from typewriters,

secretarial work can be cut by half. It is then interpreted that this capability will

result in a halving of the office workforce.2g

The most radical influence occurred in the printing industry. With the

introduction of word-processors, typesetting jobs became largely redundant,

Consequently, the anti-rationalization struggle was frequently in effect in the early

1980% such as the long term press strikes experienced by the London Times,

To what extent unemployment is attributed to the introduction of

microelectronics and to what extent to other conventional causes is impossible to

2g Counter Information Service, The New Technoloay (1980)

determine.30 In reality, the effect of microelectronic unemployment has arrived

slowly and gradually as compared to that due to rapid economic depression and

recession. But technological unemployment appears to be ever-growing in one

way direction as compared to the cyclic nature of the unemployment caused

by economic depression. In spite of economic growth in terms of GNP, the

unemployment rate is ever-increasing. Thus, such economic prosperity has been

called “growth without work.”

A number of works predicting the possible effects of microelectronioc

unemployment have appeared since the late ’70s. For instance, a French semi-

official report, the Nora and Mint repor?‘, said that within ten years, 30 % of the

labor forces of the present secondary and tertiary industries will be redundant. A

more extreme prediction is that of the British economist T. Stonier, who predicted

in 1979 that by early next century we will require only ten per cent of todays

labour force to provide all our material needs.32 Despite variation in the

numerical values of predicted obsolescence, all of the critical appraisals predicted

the certain declining tendency, as a course of logical necessity, of the

introduction of microelectronics as labour-saving devices

In order to placate the labour sector, those technocratic advocates for

the introduction of microelectronics into workplaces claimed that new kinds of

jobs, such as software work, could be created to compensate microelectronic

3o Richard Layard and Stephen Nickell, ‘Unemployment in Britain’ in C. Bean, R. Layard and S. Nickel1 (eds.) The Rise in Unemplovment (Basil Blackwell, 1987) p.166.

3’ Simon Nora et Alain Mint. L’lnformation de la societe (La Documentation Francaise. Paris, 1978).

32 Tom Forester ed. The Microelectronics Revolution (Basil Blackwell, 1980) p.303.

unemployment. As long as economic growth continues, such a solution of

unemployment may be possible for some time, but in longer terms ever-growing

unemployment of microelectronic revolution would be a logical consequence,

unless countermeasures be seriously taken.33

The arguments described in the above are mainly taken place in Europe.

Since 1978. numerous amounts of books and articles had been published as to

the nature of microelectronic revolution and its possible prospect in futre. The

opinions are divided into two camps --- optimism of technocratic establishments

and pessimism of critical sciece policy makers (their views sometimes appeared

even in a report to the government) and social scientists. The exemplary work

may be found in the report of the Committee of Science and Technology Policy

of the OECD entitled Science and technoloav in the New Economic Context.

Serious, if not pessimistic, are British economists such as Christopher Freeman of

the Sussex Science Policy Unit and D. Leach and H. Wagstaff, who have

particular concern on the virtually inreducible percentage of British

unemployment.34

In contrast to European debates American and Japanese reactions are

slow and weak. It can be explained in terms of the contrast as follws: while the

USA and Japan are producers, exporters and invaders of the world markets of

33 Calvin C. Gotlieb, ” Computer --- A Gift of Fire” in S. H. Lavington (ed.) Information Processinq 80 (North Holland. 1980).

34 An earlier one is Freeman, C. M. ‘Unemployment and Government’ J.D.Bernal Memorial Lecture, May 1978 in T. Forester ed. The Microelectronics Revolution (Blackwell, 1980) p.308 ff. Freeman, C.M., Clark, J.A. and Soete, L., Unemplovment and Technical Innovation: A studv of lona waves and economic development, (1982. Frances Printer). And also. Freeman, C, M. and Soete. L., Technical Chanae and Full Emplovment ( 1987, Basil Blackwell). Donald Leach and Howard Wagstaff, Future Emolovment and Technoloaical Chanae (Kogan, 1986).

microelectronics and thus its beneficiaries, European countries, the late-comer in

the trade, solely remains importers and victims of microelectronic revolution. A

Japanese proberv says ‘a rich man never quarrels.’

Effect of Word Processors in Japan

When European critics began to debate on the negative side of the

microelectronic revolution in the late 1970s. the Japanese general public were not

aware nor informed of the problems. Office automation was limited in labor

saving of accounting works. One of the many reasons of unawareness is that

because of the ideographic nature of Japanese language typewriters were not

widely utilized in Japanese offices and average people did not believe in the

prospect of Japanese word-processors.

In September 1978, Toshiba announced first Japanese word-processor and in

1980, planned to sell 1,000 word processors in the home market; in the following

year of 1981, a rash of new products have been introduced by other Japanese

companies, Canon, Hitachi, Matsushita, NEC, Nippon Univac, Sharp and Ricoh.”

Since then, Japanese word-processor sales grew at an average rate of 47.7

percent in the 1983-88 period.36

It was a decade later than in the West that Japanese word-processors

became widely available through a successful conversion from phonetics to

ideograph. However, the diffusion of Japanese-language word-processors has a

more revolutionary meaning since it is not an evolution from typewriter to

35 Gregory, Gene, Japanese Electronics Technoloav: enterorise and innovation (John Wiley, 1986) p.45.

36 Ibid. p.408.

microelectronic writing but from handwriting to microelectronics.

Japanese word-processors that can type thousands different characters

would be a very elementary Al or, in a better wording, Expert System, in a way of

definition that “a computer program to solve problems that would otherwise

require a human expeW3’ It fits to the claim made by the advocates of the

expert system that “In general there is a shortage of people in industrialised

society who have advanced knowledge of things, while there is an abundance of

those who deo not. Therefore the value of portable knowledge in the shape of

an expert system is that of making skills available to a wider population. This is

surely an up-skilling property and not one that robs humans of their toil.“38

Before the introduction of word-processors, it was the practice of

Japanese office to communicate latters and notes with handriting copies. The

only exceptionally important documents was typeset by specially trained expert

typists with Japanese typing machines that cannot be handled by ordinary clerks.

After the introduction, Japanese typing machine typists have lost the

expert function at the office, as everybody else can now type with word-

processors. Hence, an expert system may invite the unemployment of experts

but rt is not directly related with unemployment of general clerks as new word-

processor writing IS not necessarily faster than old handwriting. Machine-written

documents replaced the handwritten just in much more handy and clear manner.

Effect of Robotics and NC Machine tools --- Japanese case

37 CEDEHOP (European CEntre for the Development of Vocational Training) Artificial intelliaence and its potential as an aaid to vocational trainina and education (1988, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities) p.17.

36 !tz~& p 16.

It seems that the effect of microelectronic unemployment appeared in the

Japanese case mainly in the secondary industry rather than in the tertiary

industry as it was the case in the West. While NC (numerically controlled)

machine tools was first developed in the USA in 1952, it was made much less

expensive by the Japanese during the 1970s and widely employed in small

factories that suffered from the shortage of skilled labours. Furthermore, around

1980 it was combined with robotics and brought not only labor-saving but the

cost reduction of products and better quality control. In 1980, more than 90 %

of makers and users of robotics were the Japanese.3g

European critics and labor unions were naturally apprehensive of the

importation of Japanese robotics into their own factories and wanted to have the

lessons out of Japanese experience how they, particularly Japanese labor

unions, could overcome the pressure of rationalization due to the advent of

robots and NC machine tools in such factories as car manufacturing.

The Japanese union leaders as well as management may not be able to

reply with satisfactory answers. They may say that 1. because Japanese

economy is still growing, we are able to transfer redundant labor force to other

jobs, and 2. since Japanese unions are company-based, Job transfer is much

easier within the company than the case of European trade unions. Large firms

may be less affected by technological unemployment but redundancies were

more common in the case of smaller firms.“’

To the request of European critical science policy makers, the MIT1 for the

3g The figure depends on how to define robots. There is another conservative estimate of 70 %.

4o Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Bevond Computopia: Information, Automation and Democracv in Japan. (Kegan Paul International. 1988) p.93.

first time responded with a report of MITl’s think tank entitled “Investigation of

possible infouence of microcomputers on employment” in October 1979, as a

part of OECD research project on “the impact of microelectronics on productivity

and employment” and submitted it to a OECD special meeting at Paris in the

following month.

Diametrically opposed to European concern, MIT1 claimed that the introduction of

microelectronics do not necessarily reduce employment but augument, which

exactly represented MITl’s stand point. MIT1 and Japanese government were

afraid of the antagonism and resistance of labor unions and general public to the

development and production of computer that might cause unemployment and its

possible influence on the sale at the oversea market of Japanese computers that

had been promoted by MITI.

There was a severe comment on it as “a sheer lie.‘141

If we look at the report closely, we find that according to the questionaires sent

to the Japanese industial sector in the early 80s opinions were divided. As

microelectronic revolution are escalated, employment in the manufacturer of

microelectronics will be increased in the sectors of design, R & D, and

maintenance and decreased in production sector, whereas its users in secondary

as well as tertiary industries will deduce employees in all the sectors. As far as

microelectronics is employed for labor-saving purpose, this is a logical necessity.

In small machine shops, some manager-owners replaced skilled labours with

NC machine tools in the late 1970s. Japanese small firm employees are hardly

unionized, and even unionied, they are companny-based ones, which are much

41 Tsugawa Kei, “conpyutaka ha nanio motarasitaka (What computerization brought up)” Giiutsu to ninaen July 1980, p.129.

weaker than nationwide trade-based European unions. While old skill was craft-

specific, new technology is machine-specific; once machine is altered, skilled

labors cannot adjust themselves to new NC machine tools unless they are young

enough, say, less than thirty five in the age. They are, together with old

generation machines, replaced with new generation machines and hew

generation labors. Replaced skilled labors were simply vanished out of

workforce without finding any place of job transfer that often occurred within

large firms.

The next step: those shop keepers, who resisted the introduction of NC

machine tools and retained skilled labors with benevolent reason or others, could

not compete with those who introduced it and eventually went bankrupt.

The third step: Although there is no statistical study made on the

international correlation, a logical consequence will be that those European

countries who fail to introduce NC machine tools and robots will not be able to

compete with the Japanese export goods manufacture by NC microelectronic

tools and eventually loose their domestic market. In fact, the expansion of

production and of employment in the Japanese electronoic equipment industry

has been inseparably connected with Japan’s success in winning a rapidly

growing slice of the world market for industrial machinery.42 From European

side, this means the importation of unemployment from Japan.

In spite of effective warning made by alert scholars, they were not

successful to suggest how to overcome the creeping grave consequences.

As a countermeasure of thoughtless advancement of ongoing

microelectronization. it could be conceivable to have a worldwide moratorium of

42 Morris-Suzuki, Bevond Comoutooia p.97.

the use Of microelectronics for a limited time, when people, mankind, rethink of

the way toward we are heading for. In reality, it may not be plausible, as the

very ‘thoughtlessness’ allowed the permeation of microelectronics into the world

system, without which contemporary social order can hardly maintained.

Then, is the Luddite movement, as existed during the Industrial Revolution,

possible for the presend-day Microelectronics Revolution? It may not be, as the

latter certainly has many indispensable attraction.

Technoloav of aualitv: influence on the Third World

Robots will take over dirty and dangerous works of cutting, welding and

spray-painting labors in automobile industry. While the products of old

mechanical automation on mass-production base, was certainly cheaper and

worse of quality than a craftmen’s work, the goods produced by NC machine

tools are so well quality-controlled that they can meet consumer’s demands often

better than the works of craftmen.

The goals of IC and LSI technology are not only labor-saving but also

quality control of small-quantity production of various models. In the 60s and

early 70s in competing with the American capital, such as Fairchild, that

manufactured IC by use of cheap labor of the East and South-East Asia,

Japanese manufacturers, endeavored for LSI fabrication with the use of computer

automation to its extreme degree, and consequently enhanced the quality of

products. In this case, labor-saving is not the main goal of this type of

technology but in pursueing better quality and precision of products, they found

it more advantageous to exclude infalliable human hands as much as possibele.

Labor-saving is only the secondary consequence and by-product of the main

goal.

s

In the Thrid World, the effect of microelectronic revolution has not yet

been so clearly visible as in advanced countries and hence, the science policy

makers in the Third World still adheres to appropriate technology that is more

real and pragmatic for solving immediate problems. In a day when the products

of quality technology of microelectronics dominate the Third World market,

traditional or appropriate technology of lesser quality is doomed to decline.

Those who claim resource embargo, in following the successful OPEC

attempts in the 1970s must be reminded that microelectronic revolutiion is not

resource-intensive one.

Then, the final fourth stepwill be revealed. Micrroelectronic revolution will

reach the Third World, where the domestically produced goods with labor-

intensive appropriate technology will be driven out of market by

microelectronically produced goods of advanced countries, because of

cheapness as well as better quality of the latter. This aspect has been

repeatedly since the late 1970s warned by science policy scholars of the Lund

Institute of Science Policy Studies.43

There is an opinion based on macroeconomic view point that

technological unemployment will be eventually compensated with technological

job creation.44 In Japanese case, even though job may not be created in the

same sector, it will be created elsewhere as long as economic growth continues.

Women high school graduates used to find jobs of bank tellers and factory

workers. They are now hired at restaurant industry, a logical development for an

43 The Lund Letter on Science, Technoloav and Basic Human Needs no.12 (1979).

44Stephen G. Peitchinis, Computer technoloqv and emolovment --- Retrosoect and Prosoect (Macmillan, 1984).

affluent leisure society.

This may.not be the case in the Third World. Even after the relocation of

labor due to technological revolution be without much social pain completed, the

advent also creates and enlarge the difference between technologically advanced

countries and the rest, as obviously new technology are developed for and by

the advanced countries. The problem has not been solved during the 1980s

and remains to become more visible and serious in future.

Work Alienation

A traditional solution to unemployment due to the introduction of

automation was to unionize labour and demand shorter working hours and wage

increases. For union leaders, unemployment was a matter of quantity. They

haven’t as yet considered the quality of labour.

Management was alarmed by industrial unrest rn 1972 when a wildcat

strike of young labourers occured at a GM factory in the USA. They sabotaged

not for the usual reasons of wage increases and shortening of work hours, but

simply because of the mundaneness of the work. Neither management nor

union leaders had experience in solving this type of problem, nor could they

apply traditional formulae utilised in previous labour disputes. It proved to be a

jolt to management.

Since then, various countermeasures to prevent work alienation have appeared

worldwide. A Swedish car manufacturer, Volvo. introduced a job rotation system

which changed the kind of job every hour in an effort to reduce boredom

amongst the factory workers. Japanese management lnltrated a CC (quality

control) movement on the shop floor to encourage creative group discussons on

the subject of work conditions4’

It has been said that the introduction of microelectronics into workplaces

has also prompted changes in the quality of work. Microelectronics is here

described as quality technology, the word ‘quality’ of course referring to quality

as far as the mproduct assessment of consumer is concerned, not the workstyle

of worker. Whether microelectronics contributes toward the improvement or

deteriorattion of the quality of work remains to be seen.

It has been argued that computerization will result in the deskilling and loss of

dignity and self-confidence of workers who will become mere attendants, if not

slaves, to the ‘mechatronical’ (an English word coined by the Japanese) lead

player.

Technocrat+ apologists refute the above remark with claims that such a

situation can be avoided simply through worker psychotherapy. Even so, due to

the microscopic nature of microelectronics, average workers feel their work to be

less tangible and less actual than previous occupations: they are merely following

the given instructions, engaging in input and output without knowrng what IS

going on in the blackbox in between. This is a highly common procedure In

microelectronic works, whereby, if problems occur, workers need only replace the

blackbox with a new one, since the complexity and cheapness of the IC render

repairs economically unviable.

The introduction of microelectronics into some fields of industry increases

uncomplicated programming jobs that may certainly attract and sometimes even

45 Nakayama. Shigeru. “Maikon kakumei no shogeki (Impact of Mrcroelectronic Revolution) Ekonomisuto 10 April 1981, reprinted in Nakayama, Shigeru. Shimin no tameno kaaakuron (Science for Citizens) (1984) p,94. A leader of QC movement at the shop floor told me that new machine-centred workplace is so dehumanized that we cannot psychologically stand unless starting CC circles.

. -.-- ,~.-_. .._ ,_

fascinate curious young people. But generally speaking, the work is simple and

monotonous. In an effort to meet labour demands for decreased work

alienation, some factories abolished the Tayloristic conveyer system and

replaced it with a new system in which the worker moves between machines

and tasks along with the line of production so to obtain a broad overview of

production process and also, more importantly, to gain a feeling of achievement.

A Japanese experience of this new system shows that the system is welcome

among young workers, while older workers are not as adjustable.

This system also meets the labour-saving needs of management. As the

number of workers on the shop floor shrinks, it makes good sense for the

company to encourage a certain diversification of the tasks performed by the few

who remain.*

As a result, a factory is virtually deserted: only a few workers are

necessary to maintain a large assembly line. Human relations on the shop floor

are, therefore, rarefied. According to a psychologist’s research, the introduction

of microelectronics into the workplace has resulted in increased discretional

power of a worker over his machines, but a definite decrease with regard to his

power in relation to superiors4’

Martin Trow, an American sociologist, proved that the degree of

unionization is proportional to the density of population at the workplace. In

such a work habitat as an unmanned factory or a computer control room, the

population density is close to nil: the solidarity of workers is impossible. Hence,

46 This is rather exceptionally true in Japanese management. It seems that in some other countries there has been rather more reluctance to integrate operations in the hands of a single worker. Morris-Suzuki, Bevond Comoutooia p.115116.

47 A Zimbalist, “Worker Control over Technology”, The Nation NOv.17, 1979.

the advent of microelectronics seems to have directly resulted in a decrease in

labour union power. Thus, the “divide and rule” form of labour personnel

management is effectivbely at work at the new technology workplaces, whether

consciously applied or not. The microelectronic revolution may cause social

atomization. if not disintegration.

Qualitv of Work --- a new-left solution

Let us assume that it is a logical necessity that microelectronics will invite

unemployment. Two classes then emerge: those who have jobs and those

who do not. This not a healthy society by any account,

It follows, then, that the limited amount of work should be equitably

distributed amongst the population, resulting in shorter working hours and

increased leisure time. Thus, a movement of work-sharing became a

fashionable target of young people in the late 1970s though it was criticized by

the old left as governmental irresponsibility, a mere quasi-solution to

unemployment.

A more fundamental issue was raised from a new-left ecologist group: that

the sharp distinction between compulsory labor hours and the so-called ‘leisure’

hours, was not a humane or remotely satisfying way to live. It is only a post-

Industrial Revolution practise to assess a worker’s labour in terms of the hours

constrained to machine operation, since any other method is fraught with

difficulty. In other words, a worker sells his own free time to be disposed of as

the employer sees fit. Such a constrained and regimented practice is not the

work appropriate to human psychology and physiology and thus constitutes the

major part of work alienation. In this regard, an ideal life-style may be that of ’

the self-employed worker.

If a job is interesting and satisfying, hour constraints become less of a

source of stress. It is an ecologist’s view point to find out the quality of work at

the synthesis point between labor and leisure. No matter whether fishing is

labor or leisure, it is certainly a humane work. It is the utopia Bernard Shaw

envisaged ‘where work is play and play is life.’ In reality, this can be partially

attained through a student life-style.48

While work alienation is progressing, there are labour movements in

Europe pushing for the control of the workplace by workers and the

reorganization of the work process to increase interest and satisfaction amongst

workers. Though their demands are partly adopted by labour management,

through the practices of flexibility of hours and the Japanese CC movement,

competition capitalism do not allow human ideals and considerations to be easily

realized

Privacv oroblems --- Centralization or decentralization

it is said that the history of electronic industry is full of the most notorious

patent dispute cases. IBM, in its early history, built up a monopolistic share in

the world market by blocking competitors through patents and lawsuits, causing

the popular image of the computer as an enormously expensive item. IBM is

culpable of having made its systems difficult and centralized, and thereby

discouraging dispersed, imaginative and popular uses4’

On the other hand, the Japanese development of microcomputers is

48 Nakayama, Shigeru, “Honrai no gakushu to shigoto nituite (on true learning and work)“, !D& January, 1979 and also his “Mirai no shigoto to ekoroji (Future work and ecology)” in Shimin no tameno Kaaakuron p.107 ff.

4g Theodor H. Nelson, The Home Comouter Revolution (1977) pp.42-43.

aimed for the consumer market: to make computers cheaply accessible for

everybody, and hence one can argue that it is decentralization-oriented. We

may be able to make use of microcomputers for checking against the

infringement of privacy by a centralized large-scale computer system.

Against the optimism of the above, there is the criticism that a computer is

essentially invented and developed for central control and so when it is microfied,

it pervades even into private homes and infringes privacy with the use of such

forms as a pocket bell and a TV telephone. Hence, one might argue the arrival

of George Owell’s 1984 is inevitable due to the advent of microcomputers.

Through the generation-long experience with large-frame computers we

have come to know it for the centralized use as obviously general public cannot

afford it. _ We do not know yet whether microcomputer is applicable for

centralized or decentralized use. Perhaps it can be employed for either purpose

according to the social and political context of its utilization. So, is the potential

utilisation of the microcomputer by centralized authorities a definite possibility?

It all depends on who controls the microelectronic media in future..

New Media Aae

The terms ‘new technology’ and ‘new media’ are hardly new expressions.

Whenever the industrial sector tries to find or create a new consumer market,

they advertize their sales point with something ‘new’.

In the late 1970s the business community came to foresee the saturation

of the market for the material commodity of microelectronics, which were sold

under the sales name of ‘new technology’.

-_.. -. - ---

But the word had lost its freshness. Furthermore, the new technology

was devalued by critical scholars, who pointed out its possible grave social

consequences. To what extent their views influenced the public relations

departments of corporations is impossible to gauge, since the latter never

explicitly admits it.

However, this does reflect a movement by corporations, in the face of the

threat of decelerating demand for consumer durables, to extend their area of

activity into the relatively unexplored regions of the commercial production of

knowledge.50 They switched their sales attention from new technology to new

media in the early 1980s. The new media denoted a whole new set of

electronic media, such as facsimile, TV telephone, data communication, optical

communication, satellite communication and so on and often called ‘information

technology (lT).5’. It is the problem of business profitability, rather than some

impersonal force of technological evolution, which has given rise to the image of

new media and its associated ‘information society’.52 The public sector joined in

a such technocratic chorus, and MITl’s think tank published A Dav of Mr. S.

(Esushi no ichinichi), in which life with the new media was idealistically presented.

The semi-governmental Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Company (NTT)

started to experiment with their new Information Network System (INS) at the

experimental community in the suburb of Tokyo in early 1980s , which welds

together the diverse forms of auditory, visual and data communications into a

50 Morris-Suzuki, Bevond Comoutooia p.61.

51 Christopher Freeman and Luc Soete, Technical Chanae and Full Emolovment (Basil Blackwell, 1987) p.51.

52 Morris-Suzuki, Bevond Comoutooia, p.67.

single web of nationwide information channels.53

Mechanism of information caoitalism --- Exploitation of Scientific Workers

New media is synonymous with another sales phrase, though slightly

more academic, ‘information society’. It was coined in the late 60s by a

Japanese technocrat, Hayashi Yujiro,54 who invisaged a society in which

information is fully available to grassroots level, where various alternatives may

be adopted at the expense of monolithic efficiency.55 This concept was

enlarged to mean that in future information society, intellectual creativity is more

needed than material abundance.j6

As new media has been diffused in the 80s the information society has

arrived in a technological term. _ Information is more important and valuable

than material commodities.

If information is monopolized and kept secret by a single person or

industry, it cannot be sold since the public has no knowledge of its existence. If

information is publicized. it loses its commercial value, since it becomes as

available to all as air. Only when information is privatized and sold to a very

limited sector of the society, does it come to have a commercial value of often

staggering proportions. Unlike a material commodity, information is easily

duplicable and depreciated. Even if it is sold. the original owner does not ‘lose’ it.

The above unique characteristics of information can hardly be dealt with

53 Ibid., p.33.

54 Original Japanese is ‘johoka shakai.’

55 Hayashi Yujiro, ‘Kogyo shakai no yukue (Future of industrialized society) Nakayama ed. Nihon no aiiutsurvoku pp.1 66-l 68.

ss Yoneji Masuda Information Society (Tokyo, 1980) p.3.

through the traditional approach of economics, in which information was priced

by reducing it to material commodity as the copyright of a book but not w

versa.

Kogawa Tetsuo, a young Japanese critic, coined the term ‘information

capitalism’ in 1987 without interpreting its inner mechanism. Recently Tessa

Morris-Suzuki has elucidated on the subject of the new information society in

Bevond Computooia, brilliant in comparison with the arguments of old-leftists,

namely P. Baran and P. Swezey’s Monooolv caoital. The following arguments

are largely inspired by her analysis.

Monopoly capitalism in its strict sense does not promote science and

technology, but instead often buys up patents and inventions and sits on them,

without putting the inventions into use, as a means of protecting their own

industry from the threat of new science and technology. This may be the case in

bureaucratic socialism but never so in contemporary capitalism. In

contemporary capitalism, fierce inter-firm competition is the sole motivation of

promotion of private science.

Private science produces information, day and night, but it is able to be

copied in a short time, in spite of the pleas for the protection of intellectual

property.

In the market, only the best, that is, the newest. information is highly

valuable. But since information is easily replicable, the monopolistic position will

be liquidated almost immediately. It must be treated with care like fresh

vegetable or today’s catch. Hence, unless new information is created

incessantly, corporations will not be able to be maintained and will eventually

collapse

Hence, management pushes their scientists and engineers --- they may be

more aptly termed ‘scientific workers’, a group which includes not only high level

scientists and engineers but all those who are trained in new technology --- to

be constantly creative and highly productive. We may be able to apply an old

Marxist formula as follows: in the old capitalism, it was the surplus value of

labour which was exploited by capital. In the information capitalism, it is mainly

the surplus value of information that scientific workers produce that is exploited.

In the so-called knowledge-intensive industry, the commodity for sale is nothing

but the product of scientific workers. Corporations control not only the means

of production but also the means of publication.

In the USA, ambitious scientists start their own business ventures and sell

information produced by them at an appropriate price to big corporations. In

Japanese corporation laboratories, that produced by scientific workers is never

reasonable priced because it is privatized and totally owned by corporations they

belong to.

Scientific workers are not particularly well paid compared to clerks and

salesmen of corporations but are definitely poorly paid when compared to a

manager or doctor. A scientific worker’s invention at a private laboratory is

patented in the name of the corporation, the scientist receiving a small financial

bonus, because the patenting procedure is costly and not affordable by an

individual. The scientific worker nowadays becomes less and less an

autonomous professional, and more and more a part of a knowledge-producing

system which he or she is unlikely to comprehend.” Even if a scientific worker

could afford a patent, -a scientific worker, an atomized existence within a,big

57 Bevond Comoutooia p.123.

organization can never put it into profitable practice. In a big complicated

endeavor of modern industrial practice, a single idea or single patent does not

lead to production as an old self-employing inventor did. Thus, these packets

of information are all channeled into the knowledge pools of corporations, which

collect and accumulate surplus the value which scientific workers produce.

CHAPTER 3. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Computer literacy

Business initiatives of computer schools

Privatized knowledge thus produced becomes publicized sooner or later

when its obsolescence renders it valueless. Some information is systematized,

organized and arranged into a manual for users, and a text book of a new

discipline, computer science to be taught openly at educational institutions of

public as well as private sectors.5s -Such institutions belong to the infrastructuere

of the information society, to be exploitable by private corporations.

In the late 70s the impact of the microelectronic was most deeply felt in the

resulting unemployment problems, which directly hit the existing workforce and

resulted in job-relocation. The next problem to be raised was that of how to fit

the new generation of workforce into the new technological environment. In the

1980s computer literacy, computer education and training became not only a

matter of skill requirements for the new workforce but, in a much wider sense,

the central issue of the educational sector and the society at large.

Computer literacy and computer education are, of course, enthusiastically

5s Nakayama, Shigeru, “paradaimu, deishipurin, kyokasho (Paradigm, discipline and text-book” E December, 1982, reprinted in Shimin no tameno kaoakuron p.29ff.

welcomed by the private sector computer manufacturers, since obviously it is this

sector which receives the foremost benefit from the diffusion of these disciplines.

Such a dissemination of skills is likely to not only create a big market for their

products, but also contribute to future recruitment of prospective staff. On the

other hand, the education and public sectors are mostly technologically

stagnant.5g

There are four categories of computer education according to prospective

use, which sales departments of computer manufacturers target:

1) for makers of computers where highly professional skills are required for

design and manufacturing.

2) for users of computers where personnels who apply and maintain computers

for their specific professional use are needed

3) for the general public to whom computer skills can be disseminated.

4) for educational fields, where CAI (Computer-Aided Instructions) could be

introduced into classrooms.

Senshu aakko (special-trainina schools)

Whereas established formal educational institutions are conservative in

adopting new disciplines and expanding beyond the limits of numerus clausus,

the easiest target of computer sales is the informal (or less formal) vocational

education in the private sector. Senshu aakko are schools which specialize in a

single subject of post senior-high school level and ‘conpyuta gakuin (special-

training schools of computers)’ became established in many cities, their

popularity booming in the late 80s. Such educational institution are aimed at the

5s OECD. New technoloqies in the 1990s --- A socio-economic strategy (1968) p110.

training of specialists of information science and its professional appliers, needed

in both the industry and service sector of the first and second categories of the

above. As these personnel are required immediately, the business sector

cannot be expected to wait until public sector education incorporates such

schemes into their curriculum.

The special-training school system started in 1976 and has grown rapidly

since then6’ The special-training schools are vocational schools, comparable

to the American community college network, to give one-year or longer schooling

on specific vocational subjects, such as information processing, accounting and

so on. The special-training schools flourished perhaps partly because Japanese

universities are institutions of labelling, designating student ‘quality’ according to

their strict entrance examination rather than real education and training. Hence,

those who seek substantial training to cater for their immediate educational

needs are attracted by the utilitarian merit of special-training schools.

Computer schools of this special-training school category attract not only

young school-leavers (senior high school graduates who do not enter colleges or

universities) but adults sent by their firms for job transfer and college students

who are not satisfied with formal university curricula. More than half of

information science students (35,000 out of a total 66,000 in 1968) in Japanese

higher education are trained in these informal special-training schools6’ While

OJT (on the job training) is carried out in inhouse schools of big corporations,

Off-JT (off the job training) for retraining of corporate employees, is conducted by

so Table ‘The growth of senshu aakko,’ from Seishonen hakusho (White paper on the youth, 1968) p.362., waoakunino bunkvo shisaku p.42.

61 Monbusho (MESC) ed., Waaakunino bunkvo shisaku (Japanese education, white-paper, 1986) p.447

60.6% of enterprises (1987) by sending them to computer schools etc.

Jumping on the bandwagon of the success of special-training schools, many

private universities plan to open new schools and departments in information

science, a move which has been subsequently chartered by the Ministry of

Education.

While these informal special-training schools are chartered not by the

Ministry of Education (MESC) but by local governments, the MESC has

supported the schools since 1983 with subsidies for the purchase of computers

and large scale educational equipment.62

Despite the growth during the 1970s of the number of computer science

departments from 7 to 43= in Japanese universities nationwide, the equipment

and facilities are far inferior to those of the private sector, because of the

impoverished nature of the Japanese academic sector.

The next target of computer sales departments is a nebulous category,

the third category mentioned above, namely, a new nationwide system of ‘life-

long education’ or ‘recurrent education.’ The public sector, particularly local and

district governments, is interested in educating citizens in the technology of

information facilities to a minimal level of proficiency, without any in-depth

knowledge, at such local centres as science centres, culture centres, libraries and

museums. Such training is aimed at prospective users in the future expanded

market.

In spite of the corporate strategy and effort described in above, sales

have not penetrated the hard core of the education establishment, the last resort

62 && pp.283-284.

63 New information technoloaies, p.77.

61

of the last category. Education is a marginal sector of expansion in the

microcomputer market, compared to businesses and the home.64 This is a

world phenomenon but especially so in Japan, as compared with the case in the

USA, perhaps because of the inflexible bureaucratic nature of Japanese

educational system.

The Response of the Education establishment

Since the educational field is undoubtedly one of the biggest markets for

microelectronic equipment, sales departments of corporations aimed for the

‘mechatronization of education’, by applying a similar strategy to that successfully

adopted for ‘mechatronization of health care and hospitals’ during the 80s which

created a new machine-intensive system of health care led by medical equipment

manufacturers rather than the initiatives of doctors and patients,

Education is traditionally very labour-intensive work. The introduction of

the microelectronic revolution into a classroom will certainly promote

unemployment of teachers, if it is utilised for the purpose of labor-saving in the

teaching profession. Like other unions, a teachers union would fiercely fight

such a move.

The ability of teachers is measured and assessed in terms of the quality

of work rather than efficiency and productivity of commodity manufacturing.

Hence, a teachers’ union has a better cause for opposrng the advent of

computers compared to other unions. Japan has a precedent case in the

recent past in which the introduction of TV teaching at a classroom was

vehemently resisted by teachers in the 1950s. A cynical Japanese critic

64 OECD. New Information Technoloaies --- a challenae for education (1986) p.14.

commented at the time that the Japanese educational practice is so formal that

teachers can be replaced by computers.

Yet, the provisions newly designed as a response to technological challenge

are increasing the complexity and diversity of the curriculum, adding demands on

the teachers, making their working agendas heavier still.65 Unless early R & D

of computer education is geared to labour-saving, technological unemployment

may not occur in the education field. Hopefully the introduction of computers will

result in the fostering of the humane qualities of the educational community, just

as the advent of photography made an impact on the world of art in the

nineteenth century. Some young ambitious teachers are utilizing the new

technologies and developing new educational software, and seem to be

propelling education into a more machine-intensive as well as labour-intensive

‘high-tech, high-touch’ direction.

Apart from immediately relevant unemployment cases, the education

establishment is powerful enough to resist policies that ignore liberal values in

preference to vocational values and respond only to economical and

technological change. The educational sector calls for a broad vocational

foundation for all workers, though many employers prefer short and limited

training focused upon particular job assignments Moreover, the problem of

outdated equipment and instruction --- one already familiar to vocational

education --- is now magnified with the advent of computers.66

The reaction of the public sector

In the USA, the early phase of the process of knowledge production is

65 New information technoloaies, p.100.

66 New Technoloaies in the 1990s pp.1 02-l 03.

53

sponsored by the public sector, including local as well as state governments,

with the slogan of ‘computer literacy,’ perhaps in order to outstrip Japan in the

future computer war. In contrast, to the surprise of Western observers, the speed

of diffusion of computer literacy in Japan is the lowest among OECD member

countries6’

The Japanese government, the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture

(MESC), is still reluctant to sponsor computer education in the public sector,

leaving it to inhouse training of the corporations or private vocational computer

schools. The MESC explains that this is due to the fact that Japan does not

have such monopolistic computer manufacturers as American IBM and Apple,

and so the government cannot decide which company’s hardware to adopt

equipment to be installed in the public school network nationwide. The

government also claims that it is unwise to adopt a model at present due to the

unstable state of affairs of current computer developments. They argue that, with

model changes every half-year, a machine-specific training will be obsolete by the

time a student graduates. Even if computer education is adopted at schools,

nearly half of the student cohort would not take it seriously unless it could be

geared to the university entrance examination. Since this is not the case,

students do not allocate time for it, except for personal divertissment.

In practicr, most Japanese college students graduate without having any

chance to learn computers during their formal education. CAI is only extensively

used in the national technical college (three years of senior-high school standing

plus two years of junior college level), where students are freed from the

preparation for college entrance examinations.

” New Information technoloaresp.20.

Only at vocationa! senior high schools of post-compulsory education level

(ninth to twelfth school years) where students are not expected to enter tertiary

education, are computer courses adopted and word processors used in the

place of old abacus training. In the 80s courses on information

engineering and information processing are introduced into commercial and

technological vocation senior-high schools to provide lower-class information

engineersss

The public sector should not partake in the pursuit of private profit, but

maintain not an economic, but a development rationale. Accordingly the building

of the infrastructure of the microelectronic revolution must be accomplished by

the government, just as MIT1 protected and encouraged the computer-

manufacturing sector. More important still, it is the function of a government to

regulate and resolve the conflict between different companies and possibly bring

about uniformity in computer hardware as well as software, since it is the

consumer-customer, not industry, which suffers from the inter-firm computer war.

This is rather close to the policy stance of the Ministry of Education that

dominates Japanese education, while MIT1 (Ministry of International Trade and

Industry) has so far encouraged inter-firm competition under its control.

From Bureaucracv to business model of Education?

Modern Japanese education was planned and organized by a

bureaucracy to act as a department of bureaucracy. throughout from elementary

to higher education in 1870s. The bureaucratic model of education has the

following characteristics as opposed to the pnvate model:

@ Figures are from the table on Monbusho,m waoakunino bunkvo sisaku p.447.

bureaucratic 1 business

2. high regimentation 1 dexterity

3. formality ( pragmatic

4. inflexibility 1 flexible

5. inefficiency 1 efficient

6. long-range view j short-sighted

7. accountability 1 profit-making

8. stability I changeable

9. static I dynamic

10. regulation-based I money-based

While most of Japanese formal education belongs to the category of the

bureaucratic model, special-training schools and recurrent education more closely

resemble the business model.

The typical bureaucratic model of education IS found in the civil service

examination system of traditional Chrna, where education was subordinated to

bureaucracy. The modern Japanese education system was created within the

existing bureaucracy in the 1870s and the government adopted the civil service

examination in the early 1890s. In this same period, the spirit of talent recruitment

by way of fair examinations was all over Europe. Japan followed suit. Still yet,

Japanese examination-mindedness may be attributed to the culturally imbedded

Confucian spirit that is shared In Confucian cultural regions, such as Korea,

Hongkong, Singapore. Taiwan and, of course, mainland China. It is the spirit of

the civilian control over military by scholar bureaucrats, who are selected

rigorously and fairly in terms of pure talent shown on examination sheets, thus

excluding the nepotism and pressure of the wealthy and powerful.

The logical consequence of a Confucian meritocracy is the creation of a

‘gakureki shakai (a society hierarchically ranked according to the quality of

school attended). In its simplistic form, all Japanese people are hierarchically

ranked, from the graduates of the University of Tokyo on top of pyramid, to the

compulsory school leavers at the bottom. When two people meet for the first

time in such a society, one cannot feel easy until one knows what school the

other has graduated from.

In such a society, the social position and status of each person is

predetermined at the time when one enters the school at which one will finish

one’s education. It is a static and stable society, and, since all are content with

their social rank, as fairly and equitably assessed by examinations, law and order

is well maintained.

The above is, of course, a much rdealized form of a bureaucratic model

society, in which only the ruling top elite could be one hundred percent happy.

The remainder of the population would attempt to climb up the social ladder. the

most effective means being through business success.

The balance between the public and private education

-

Japanese modern history was a constant process of technology transfer

from the public to the private sectorea. the process completed only in the postwar

period. Compared to technology, education is much delayed in the public-

private transfer. Whether education should be completely privatized is another

question, however.

The balance between public and private expenditure on the investment of

computer education varies from one country to another. Recent European

trends show that the public sector, particularly in France, is the largest promotor

of computerization of education.” Since Europe, in the 1980’s, was the late-

comer in computer manufacturing, the government must push their education

community as the market of their industry. In the developing stages of Europe’s

computer manufacturing industry, the public cost may be accounted for the

benefit of bringing up the future industry and creating new employments. In the

Japanese case, the private cost will be amply returned. The Japanese private

sector is so all-powerful that it does not require government assistance.

We said in the beginning that a new technology is promoted by technocracy and

assessed by democracy. In reality, however, new technology is promoted by

the private sector and assessed by the public sector. It is, therefore, the

essential role and responsibility of the public sector to control and regulate the

computerization of education, especially at a time of ruthless cut-throat

competition when long range consequences are not on the agenda for the

6g Shigeru Nakayama. “Sciene and technology in modern Japanese development”. William Beranek Jr. and Gustav Ranis (eds), Science, technoloav and economic development: a historical and comparative study (Praeger, 1978) pp.202- 232.

” New Information Technoloaies chapter V.

private sector competitors.

Intrinsic problems in computer teaching

Teachabilitv of a new technoloqy

It is a traditional educational practice to teach children toward maturity by

adults. In a new technology environment, however, adults are required to

maintain the childlike curiosity and childhood ability to learn and work with new

technology.”

Whether new technologies can be teachable is an intrinsic question of

technical education. Nobody is qualified to teach, at least within formal

education system, the enfants terrible who breakthrough technological forefront.

For instance, creators of the Apple personal computer, Stephen Wozniak and

Steven Jobs have many common features: both bored by school and dropped

out from college to work in the niches of electronic hobbyists.‘* Teachers in

formal education cannot compete with teenager hobbyists who hang around

Akihabara area (the famous centre of microelectronics sales in Tokyo).

When the frontier is still moving ahead, those involved have no time to

systematize the accumulated knowledge into a teachable form and often they are

confused which is right truck to develop and which not. At this stage, if the

technology is teachable, it can be only through on-the-job apprenticeship.

Only after the front turned to be relatively stable and knowledge

standardized, the subject becomes teachable. Before IBM introduced its own

personal computer, the IBM PC, in 1981, teachers had no settled version of

” Joan N. Burstyn, ‘The challenge to education from new technology’, in J.N.Burstyn ed., Preparation for life? (Falmer. 1968) pp.1 78-179.

‘* Stan Augarten. Bit bv bit: an illustrated historv of computers (Unwil paperbacks, 1984) pp.276-277.

.

computer hardware for teaching at vocational education.

Only when the subject is completely settled to the extent that a text-book

can be written, it becomes a school-discipline to be taught at formal education.

Vicissitudes of discioline

According to Yamada Keiichi and his collegues73, the average life-cycle of

science and technology is seven years from the birth of a paradigm to the

disappearance of research front. The length of the life-cycle has dramatically

shortened in recent years. In old days, an engineer who learned a technology

at school could live on with it for his whole career life. Nowadays, because of

high competition, the life-cycle is so shortened that technicians and engineers

must be retrained two or three times to fit themselves to new life-cycle of new

technologies. Those who failed are obliged to retire from their career life.

The life-cycle can be applied to top rank scientists and engineers also.

In order to meet the demand for polymer chemistry in the postwar years, the

University of Tokyo planned to establish the Department of Polymer Chemistry

within the School of Engioneering, but when it was founded and students

graduated, the high time of polymer chemistry was already over.

In science and technology, such vicissitudes are normally observable in any

fields. In terms of research performance, the life-cyle of research and

development can be clearly recognized. In terms of manpower, it is like a

business cycle of supply and demand; students are attracted in an area where

manpower shortage is found at the time of college entrance, and when they

finish training, the area is overcrowded with those who entered in the field with

the same motivation. Furthermore, the vicissitude is accelerated with the change

73 Yamada Keiichi, Kaaakuno laifusaikuru

of science policy in the public sector. It is the still unforgettable sour experience

of the American scientific community that they suffered from a severe budget cut

since 1968.

Unlike USA, France and UK, and like West Germany, the Japanese budgetary

structure allows not a dramatical up and down of budget allocation but a slow

and gradual incrementation, intensified only in recent years in the 80s. This may

be perhaps due to the absence of a definite science policy in Japanese

government. A Japanese system ofNumerus clausus, the entrance quota of

colleges, also contributed in stabilizing the vicissitude of disciplines. Since the

system is conservative, Japanese technical education do not meet flexibly to the

demand of the industrial sector but ironically less vulnerable at the time of cyclic

employment crisis.

The Departments of Electronic Technology of Japanese higher education

enjoy exceptionally long-lasting flourishment since their founding around 1960. If

we look at closely, however, it has experienced vicissitudes within the field.

Parallel to the life-cycle of successive generations of electronic technologies,

since vacuum tube, to transister. to integrated circuits, to large-scale integrate

circuits (LSI) and finally to VLSI, scientists and engineers has experienced harsh

years of retraining and readjusting themselves to the new generation of

technology.

Curriculum Reform possible?

New technologies create new disciplines and demand a curriculum reform

at educational institutions. This is particularly noticeable in the teaching of

science and technology with obvious reasons.

___l_--.l- _._.

Even if a new discipline is successfully introduced into the curriculum, old

disciplines and old teachers are never replaced, never die out. Consequently,

the curriculum becomes overcrowded and students’ burden increased.

Only at the occasion of a drastic institutional reform,

a radical shake-up of the overcrowded curriculum is taken place. The campus

unrest in the late 1960s provided one of such rare opportunities.

A logical and consistent attempt of such curriculum reforms was projected

under the title of ‘Engineering Science’ in the 1960s. The advocates of the

project rearranged all the disciplines, putting undisciplinized knowledge and even

newly brought empirical findings under a thorough methodology, abstracting

common features out of variety of phenomena, and simplified into minimum

essentials following the logical steps from the fundamental to the applied. This

approach can be also applicable to other scientific area such as medical

sciences, where the overcrowdedness of curriculum is a serious source of

discomfort.

In reality, however, the Engineering Science project has been

disseminated only among the small circle of its advocates and sympathizers. It

is nearly impossible for old teachers to be converted Into a new teaching

method. The thorough reform must be awaited until the next generation to

come up.

For instance, the teaching of drawing has been the basic of all modern

engineering vocation since the time of the French Revolution. With the advent

of computers, traditional teaching of drawing would be largely replaced by cad-

cam teachrng and computer science. The old teachers of drawing who belong

to the pre-computer generation are totally disqualified for the teaching of

computer science.

Such a sta!o of affirs are similarly occurring in any field that introduced

computers and will occur in future as we1l.74

Generational choice

When a new technology is introduced into a society, the immediate

reaction of the average people who are content with their customary lifestyle is

embarrrassment and subsequent rejection. History of technology has ample

examples of such cases as automobile, aeroplane and so on.

A new technology thus intrtoduced divide mankinds into two categories,

those who take advantage of it and those who do not. In cultural term, into

those who can adjust themselves to the computopia and those who cannot;

namely, into computer literates and illiterates. Or. in a political term, into two

camps, technocracy and democracy.

Admitting that the ‘two-culture’ problems are unalienable to the human

kind and hence unsolvable, those who believe in democracy would hopefully

prevent the diversification of have and have-not along with the development of a

new technology.

Its success all depends on the later process of technology assessment to be

taken place at the grassroot level; accordingly, some technologies die out and

some survive

In the process of a generation-long assessment, the next generation would

choose kinds of technology appropriate to them freely. namely democratically,

without being coerced by elitistic technocracy, while the damage on the present

74 Nakayama Shigeru ‘Gijutsu kakushin to kyoiku (Technological Innovation and Education)’ Shin kvoiku iiten

generation, who are incompetent to assimilate themselves to new technological

surroundings, should be minimized.

Thus assessed fruitfully, those who could fully appreciate it is only the

next generation who are born and brought up in a new technological

environment, Computer literacy may be diffused among the next generation, for

whom microelectronic technology will be a part of their basic culture like reading,

writing and arithmetics.

CHAPTER 4. PROSPECT

The Centre Always Shifts

Scientists today, at least native English-speaking

scientists, believe that most science is written and

communicated in the English language. The present

overwhelming usage of English practiced in the world

scientific community gives an impression that this state

of affairs could be perpetuated in future generations as

well. It may be called "English (language) Imperialism"

by non-English-speaking scientists with a grievance.

The latter group of scientists might be relieved,

however, to find the foliowing lesson from the history of

science.

Throughout the history of science, the centre of

scientific activities has continually moved from one

place to another: say, from ancient Babylonia to

classical Greece, to Hellenistic worlds, to India, to the

Islamic region, to Renaissance Europe, to seventeenth

century England, to eighteenth century Paris, to

74

nineteenth century German universities, to twentieth

century USA. If we look closely, we find that the shift

has taken place not always across national boundaries but

because the language employed to express science has

changed.

Problems with Lansuaqe

A national boundary of science is only a modern

phenomenon, culminating today in incorporated defence

science. In studies of the history of science, the

language employed by the authors is more meaningful than

their race or nationality, as the literature isrevealing

to us concerning the former but not the latter. Thus

what we call, for instance, Greek science, is not that

practiced by the Greek race in classical antiquity, but

rather science which is written in Greek language. In

this way, we can well define Latin science and also

Chinese science, the latter which includes science

practiced by Koreans and Japanese and written in Chinese

language in the pre-modern period.

According to history, Arabic science had

incorporated the peripheral languages of algebra and

chemistry in addition to the Greek tradition. Paradigms

of Eastern science, however, remained unchanged up until

the early twentieth century because its centre stayed in

China and its scientific language continued to be

Chinese, while the Japanese began to switch their

paradigm from the Chinese to that of the West and started

75

to translate Western scientific works."

"Centre-oerivherv hypothesis@' in science

When the shift of the scientific centre took place,

or more precisely when the scientific language changed,

what would have happened is one of the major issues for a

student of the history of science to contemplate

seriously. In the following, I shall present an

hypothesis - still not fully tested - to explain this in

terms of the centre and periphery dichotomy.

Scientists at the scientific centre, of course,

express their profession in the central language. On

the other hand, those scientists in the periphery

conceive science in their native language while

expressing the outcome in the central language; in other

words, scientific bilinguality exists in the periphery.

In the ordinary practice of normal science’s, the latter’s

state of affairs is considered to be disadvantageous,

since peripheral scientists have to conform to the norm

and paradigm of the centre. For them, the model to

follow always exists in the centre and what they must do

to the best of their ability is come close to the ideal

model and assimilate themselves toward that end. They

” Shigeru Nakayama Academic and scientific traditions in China. Japan and the West (University of Tokyo Press, 1984) and also his “The transplantation of modern science in Japan” Center for studies in hither education, the Universitv of California, occasional paper, no.23 (1982) 26~.

76 In the sense of Thomas Kuhn Structure of scientific revolutions (Chicago UP., 1962).

76

can never think of surpassing the standard of the centre

or of changing a given paradigm. Even if they attempted

to do so, there would be neither followers nor

evaluators. On the other hand, central scientists can

pursue their research without being concerned as to what

is going on in the periphery. (This centre-periphery

relationship can be also applied to academic disciplines

between basic and applied sciences.)

If the above situation continues, stagnation may

result with regard to the further extension of normal

scientific practice. In the centre, while scientists

look for sources of information only in the central

language, they may cease to be receptive to new paradigms

which often emerge in the non-orthodox context of a

language other than the central language. On the other

hand, upon accumulation of information from the centre as

well as the periphery, peripheral scientists occupy a

position advantageous to that of central scientists due

to the variety and abundance of information available to

them. Chances are that out of this state of affairs, a

new paradigm will emerge.

The 'threshold' conditions that prevail when the

periphery becomes the centre are, first, when the

language used in expressing their trade changes from the

central language to their own native language, and

second, when the latter begins to be cited by other

language groups. With the lack of the second condition,

a peripheral activity remains to be a local paradigm and

77

local science, such as culture- and locality-bound

sciences like some form of geological science.

Events in Germany in the 1920's

In order to explain the shift of the centre from

Germany to the USA in the 1920s in terms of language

change, I conducted a survey on citation sources of

scientific articles which appeared in major physics

journals such as Annalen der Phvsik. Zeitschrift fuer

Physik and Physical Review in 1900 and 1925.77 German

journals cited mostly German articles (80% - 90%) in and

around 1900 - although practically all German scientists

could read English - whereas by about 1925, the incidence

of German citations decreased to 60% - 70% and citations

from English journals simultaneously increased.

American journals, throughout this period, mostly cited

articles by fellow Americans, but the quantity did not

exceed 40%, the remainder being citations from German and

British authors.

This survey does not directly prove the validity of

the above-mentioned centre-periphery hypothesis, but

indications are that the Americans collected a greater

variety of world-wide information, while the proud

Germans, who communicated exclusively within the German-

speaking scientific community around the turn of century,

apparently lost self-confidence in the course of time and

77 77 NAKAYAMA Shigeru “Kagaku no chushin no ido to paradaimu (Shifts of scientific centres and paradigms)” Kanaaawa daioaku hvoron (1988)

70

cited more English journals.

Problems of Human Resources

Within the history of science discipline, there is a

number of studies on the rise of scientific centres and

their mechanisms, whereas there are far fewer studies on

the reasons why the centres declined or disappeared.

Not only is the latter study much less attractive, but it

is difficult to approach, due to the lack of visible and

dramatic evidence. Perhaps the normal course of

development is such that as aged science attracts less

followers, it reaches a stage resembling natural death.

Although the centre-periphery hypothesis might have

been at work slowly from the late nineteenth century

onwards", what occurred in Germany in the 1920s may not

be the process of natural death. It must have depended

also on external factors, such as the defeat in World War

I and the ensuing economical hardship, finalized by Nazi

intervention in 1930s.

The state of affairs is well documented by Isidore

Rabi's experience of studying in Germany in the late

1920s.7g In those days, German science had created its

last and greatest paradigm of quantum mechanics. Rabi,

‘* Critical arguments of Friedrich Paulsen on German university research at the end of the nineteenth century and the famous memorandam of Adolf von Harnack at the time of founding Kaiser-Willhelm Gesellschaft before the World War I are indications of German crisis-consciousness.

7g Rabi’s address to the History of Science Society, annual meeting at New York in December 1957. Also John S. Rigden, Rabi. scientist and citizen (NY. Basic Book, 1987).

79

who followed the American practice of studying in Germany

before starting his scientific career after completing

his Ph.D., was naturally attracted by those big names,

such as Wernar Heisenberg, Erwin Schroedinger and others.

What he found in Heisenberg's seminar was that

Heisenberg was the only German, --- more than half the

seminar participants were Americans, and the rest were

Chinese, Japanese and so on. Big names associated with

the quantum mechanics paradigm were all there in Germany

but no young followers were coming up. In his eyes,

the decline of German science was all too apparent.

In those days, Rabi wrote scientific papers in the

German language with the aim of obtaining recognition

from his German peers. However, it was not language but

scientific human resources, which contributed to the

shift of the scientific centre. Language is only a

superficial indication of centre shift, which can be more

easily dealt with survived documents in historical

scholarship. However, a fact of relocation of scientific

manpower is more essential in 'migration of scientific

leadership', a better expression than 'shift of centre'.

A new scientific concept and new paradigm may be

language-bound, but a scientific revolution can be

completed only with those groups of scientists who

support and develop a new concept or paradigm. In the

above case, German is the original language of quantum

mechanics concepts, but those concepts were completed by

American followers who translated them into their own

80

native language of English after returning home from

studying in Germany.

From USA to where?

Since the mid-1980s, the "decline" theory of

American civilization has been entertained among American

authors." Along with this argument, it may be

worthwhile to examine the possibility and condition of

the centre shift from the USA to elsewhere, although

American science remains predominant in the contemporary

world. The candidate countries to be examined here are

Japan in the near future, and China in the distant

future.

Problems with Lancfuaoe

One of the requirements for a nineteenth-century

scientist was to be well versed in three languages:

English, German and French. This, of course, applied

even to proud German Wissenschaftler. Hence there were

few language barriers among European scientists.

One of the Ph.D. requirements for a twentieth-

century American scientist was, prior to World War II, to

be accomplished in the above three languages, not only in

reading but also in conversation, in order to communicate

with European scientists. After the Second War,

however, language requirements were reduced to mere

a’ Ira C. Magaziner & Robert B. Reich. Mindina America’s Business: the decline and rise of the American economy (1982) is one of early examples.

81

reading ability. Today, American scientists do not

require any language other than English or, even if a

language requirement does exist, it is as a matter of

ceremonial formality. They believe that one can practice

science with English only, as major contributions to

science are all written or translated into English.

Scientists in non-English-speaking countries entertain

some doubt in this belief, but they know it is largely

true in the current cirsumstanmce of the scientific

world.

If we apply the centre-periphery hypothesis

discussed above, the present situation in American

science is clearly an indication of the beginning of a

declining phase, as they are only able to collect

information available in the central language of English.

As a matter of fact, some perceptive observers" took

notice of this disparity of information flow and

expressed the necessity for American scientists and

engineers to learn the Japanese language.

Centre-shift of Industrial Science

Most scientific papers by Japanese academic

scientists are now written and published in English and

hence there is little problem in this respect. But this

is not the area where the Japanese show excellence, but

*’ Such as Senator John D. Rockefeller

82

in industrial science, as we discussed elsewhere'*; the

fact is that Japanese academic science and university

research is inferior to its American counterpart.

Academic science is evaluated by peers whilst ,

(incorporated and technocratic) science, by sponsors or

employers.M Each science has its own value system.

For instance, the concept of "creativity" differs vastly

in meaning between the world's scientific community and

managers of big Japanese corporations. It means

Nobel prizes for the former and product-marketability

without international conflict for the latter.

Besides, academic science is, in principle, public

knowledge to be openly publicized and hence there are no

problems of ownership of intellectual property which

turns out to be quite a serious matter in incorporated,

and technocratic science. Hence, the mechanism of

centre-shift and the centre-periphery hypothesis will

work in science in an entirely different fashion from

that of academic science.

"Language barrier" for Japanese and other peripheral

academic scientists describes the frustration and

s* Shigeru Nakayama “Independeence and choice: Western impacts on Japanese higher education” Hioher Education 18 (1989) p.46. A blunt statement of a non-academic observer simplified the matter clearly, “The Japanese can’t compete [with the United States at this [basic science] level because their universities are not research organizations; they concentrate on education and training, while the research is conducted in the corporation.” in Robert Johston and Christopher G. Edwards, Enteroreneurial Science: new links between corporations, universities and aovernment (Quorum books, 1987) p.75.

*3 For the usage of “academic science” and ” industrialized science”, see Jerome Ravetz Scientific knowledoe and its social oroblems (1971).

83

- -.

difficulty to express their works freely in the central

language of English in an open international conference.

The Japanese industrial scientistsa need hardly feel

that barrier. In industrial science, language barrier

exists at the receiving ends of information rather than

the expressing.

Among Japanese industrial scientists, who have

academic inclinations, a cynical dictum prevails: "In

industrial science, the most valuable scientific

information is kept secret as know-how of company

esotery, less valuable is sold in a form of patent", and

least valuable is openly reported in an academic

journa186.9' What American scientists need is

information accumulated and stored in the form of know-

how in Japanese industrial, incorporated science. This

information is usually not publicized but stored,

sometimes unwritten. And if it were written, it would

be in Japanese, appearing in an informal kind of media,

such as handwritten reports or patent applications.

Unlike academic science, there is not much drive on the

e4 Hereafter, I use ‘industrial’ scientists, instead of a more general term of ‘industrialized’ ‘incorporated’ or ‘technocratic’ scientists, specifically meaning those work in Japanese private enterprises.

s5 “The Munich based IF0 Economics Institute argues that patent registrations in Japan help in worker motivation and public relations, and that they are often made in order to avoid disputed.” Ron Matthews “Technological Dynamism in India and Japan” Erik Baark and Andrew Jamison eds. Technoloaical Development in China, India and Japan (MacMillan, 1986) p.175.

86 Publication on an open academic journal is employed as a means of public relations before the company sells the patent.

84

part of Japanese industrial scientists to put these

sources into English, unless they have a particular

purpose in doing so, such as advertising in an academic

sciene journal before selling patents abroad. Thus, it

is largely left to American scientists and engineers to

collect and translate this non-public and semi-public

information, or even to steal it.

It is observed that the most obvious superiority of

Japanese industrial science over American is its

capability of information gathering (prerequisite of, or

synonymous with 'imitation'!). While JICST (Japan

Information Centre of Science and Technology) has

monitored technical information worldwise for decades,

its American counterpart NTIS (National Technical

Information Service) has been unable to provide large

numbers of translations of documents originally written

in Japanese. NTIS will operate a computer terminal

giving access to an international data base of Japanese

technical information that has been established by JICST.

Unfortunately, the data base will have only English

titles and keywords, so it will still be necessary to

arrange for translations of substantive material."

e’ Justin L. Bloom, “A new ear for U.S.-Japanese technical relations? A cloudy vision” Cecil H. Uyehara ed. U.S.-Japan Science and Technoloqv Exchanqe: Patterns of interdependence (1988) pp.228~229.

In this regard, I recall that in the late 1950s I was requested by the Library of Congress to conduct a project to make Japanese scientific works available in English. They said that they have enough fund for translation under the post- Sputnik boom of American science and technology but in those days human resources of translating Japanese into English were not sufficiently available to conduct the project. Later, I heard complaints that they only translated titles of journal articles, which is practically useless. Three decades later, the US are taking

85

The above are still published matters of scientific

findings. Unlike academic science, which may be

transmitted by written publications, the transfer of

industrial science (technology) is carried on mainly

through personal contact."

In terms of information flow, the central position

in academic sciece could be maintained more easily and

perhaps for a longer time, becaause of its relative

easiness of obtaining peripheral information, than that

of industrial science. Thus, the USA will still

maintain the central position of academic science of the

twentieth century American style for some time and

perhaps bring it into the twenty-first century. The

world of academic science will remain to be that of

English, in which language Japanese academic scientists

continue to write.

In contrast, the language of industrial science has

not been exclusively English. Hnece, the centre-shift

of industrial science may possibly take place much more

easily and quickly to elsewhere, to Japan, China, or

wherever. In fact in some area of industrial science,

such as robotics, the centre has already shifted from the

USA to Japan.

Cornouter lancuaqe

this project more seriously under a financial constraint.

” OECD. The conditions for success in technoloaical innovation (Paris 1971) p.98.

86

One of the paradigmatic sciences in postwar American

science will be computer science. Its language has been

developed so far only in English. One may claim that

with the advent of computer translaticn, all the

scientific resources would be translated into English in

the near future, and hence there would be no information

shortage and no such centre shift associated with a

central language change as has happened in the history of

science; American science is, supposedly, forever!

Up to the 197Os, I was inclined to believe in such a

claim. In those days, putting Chinese ideographic

characters into computers could hardly be anticipated.

A decade later, however, Japanese computer engineers

succeeded in sending Japanese word processors into

consumer markets. In the meantime, in order to make

complicated characters workable, it was required to

extend computer capacity far beyond the task of dealing

with simple alphabets. Larger computer capability means

larger possibility of further application for future

development. The disadvantage of the complicated

ideographic tradition now turns out to be advantageous.

It was noted by a keen Swedish observer, Jon Sigurdson

that l'some experts claim that the handicap of the

Japanese language has helped to improve the level for

voice and handwritten input and automatic translation.

The reasons given are that the problems that must be

solved are more challenging than those related to Western

languages. In fact, Japanese industries have come to

87

dominate the world market for high-speed facsimile

equipmenta to replace telex.% Furthermore, Japan was

the first country to introduce word processors which

responded to voice input. Such machines, even if slow,

were already being sold in 1982.U1g'

On the matter of computer translation too, Japanese

and Chinese engineers are more zealous than American.

This is merely a manifestation of peripheral psychology,

but I see here my centre-periphery hypothesis at work on

the matter of information collection.

Furthermore, Japanese and Chinese engineers are

foreseeing the conversion of computer commands and

computer language itself into their own language.

Interpreted within my hypothesis again, this indicates

that they are preparing to turn their scientifically

peripheral language into the central one.

Human Resources Problems

Scientific human resources are increasingly becoming

a key factor in the promotion and maintenance of a

country's scientific standard. Up until the middle of

the nineteenth century, scientific standards were

a9 It proves to be much more convenient and useful for sending ideographic letters than alphabetical telex.

sa In Japan. the use of international telex reached in its maximum in 1984, while international telephone calls skyracketted since then. Seishonen hakusho (1988) p.13.

” Jon Sigrudson, “The High Technology Challenge and Polities in Japan and Sweden”, Erik Baark and Andrew Jamison eds. Technoloaical Development in China, India and Jaoan (MacMillan, 1988) ~83.

88

promoted and maintained by a handful of amateur geniuses.

The philosophical faculties of German universities in

the nineteenth century devised a reproduction system of

scientists, and since then the world scientific community

has been progressively enlarged. A nineteenth-century

Japanese scientist, Hantaro Nagaoka, observed that whilst

British and French science was maintained by a few A-

class scientists, German universities had a considerable

quantity of scientific human resources, from A to E

classes.

In the early twentieth century, American graduate

schools started to produce still greater Ph.D. human

resources with more systematic training. According to

I. Bernard Cohen", while there were not as many A and B

class scientists as we found in Europe in the prewar

period, the USA produced a great number of C and D class

scientists and engineers, upon whom postwar American

science has been built. This is a mass science: in

addition to that, the American Federal government

lavished expenditure on research and development to

create a big science, which characterised postwar

American science.

Postwar Japan has also built up a large amount of

scientific human resources since the beginning of the

1960s. In terms of sheer numbers, it is by no means

‘* Paraphrased by me from a lecture delivered at Harvard University “Science in America” in 1955.

89

equal to that of the USA; the quality differs also.

Whilst the American scientific community acquired foreign

scientists and students at times to suit their needs in a

'brain-drain' of other countries, this phenomenon never

occurred in Japan, where scientists and students were all

Japanese citizens, educated in the Japanese education

system, and screened by the entrance examination of

higher education. Industrial scientists are "quality-

controlled" in order to achieve the ambitions of

corporations.

Migration of scientific leadership

As I stated earlier, language is merely a

superficial or superstructural manifestation of centre

shift. If we look at the base of scientific human

resources, we shall find other aspects of migration of

scientific leadership.

Let us suppose that the scientific centre is now

shifting from the USA to elsewhere. Consequently, we

find a considerable difference in the human resources

problems of Germany in 1920s and the USA in 1990. From

the nineteenth century up to the 192Os, students of

science all over the world gathered in Germany, the world

scientific centre at the time. In the same way, world

students of science are now assembled in the USA for

training and research. The major difference between

these two migration phenomena is that while students

going to Germany returned home, many current students

90

sent to the USA stay there and become American scientists

and engineers.

American science or Asian science

After a decade of science and technology boom in the

post-Sputnik era, the American research and development

world experienced long years of financial desperation as

the result of successive Federal budget cuts in the 70~'~.

During this time, young American graduates turned their

backs upon science and technology in preference to the

more secure and highly-rewarded professions of law,

medicine and business. In their places, a number of

students from abroad were brought ing4.

The research and development profession of science

and technology is, in principle, a world in which race

and sex are irrelevant, a world in which birth, wealth

and language plays much less a role than in other

professions, in other words, the world of hungry sports.

In the science and technology world, students with a WASP

background must compete on an equal standing, and hence

they choose less risky and more advantageous professions.

Foreign students from the third world seeking

careers abroad tend to choose studies of science and

technology, in which native language plays much less a

role than in other disciplines, such as humanities and

g3 B. L. R. Smith and J. J Karlesky: The state of academic science ~01.1, Change Magazine Press. (1977).

94 Statistics of this trend is found in Science Indicators --- 1982 (Washington DC) p.28.

91

social sciences, or in other professional studies such as

law and medicine.

In fact, the majority of science and engineering

students in American graduate schools are now foreign-

borng5. In the trend of new American engineering Ph.D.,

the number of US. citizens declined to half in the last

decade and half and is outnumbered by temporary visa

holders in 1984. This trend will be accelerated

further, unless external measures are applied to limit

enrolment of foreign studentsg6. In the 195Os, the

largest number of foreign scientists came from India, but

the recent trend shows that an overwhelming number comes

from East Asia, particularly the so-called NIEs (Newly

Industrial Economies) countries, followed by Arabian

countries". 1988 statistics show that Taiwanese

scientists are prevalent, followed by those from China,

Korea and Hongkong". One can easily predict that China

will surpass Taiwan in the near future.

For instance, a new field like computer science

attracts more foreign students, as English is less of a

g5 Foreign students now receive as a majority of engineering doctoreal degrees awarded annually by USuniversities. Sources: unpublished tabulations from the National Research Council’s Doctorate Records file quoted in The Scientists

” This measure is actually taken place in some graduate school but not far from universal application.

” Foreign-born graduate engineers in the United States are most likely to come from Asia and the Middle East. Sources: Institute for International Education, Profiles, 1983/84. quoted in The Scientists

‘s The Scientists

92

requirement, than in other fields. In these new fields,

aged, established professors cannot compete with young

graduate students in catching up with the research

frontier. Consequently, most American students taking

courses in computer science are, in actual practice,

instructed by foreign-born teaching assistants rather

than an American-born professor who has a nominal

teaching post.

Thus, it may not be a joke or too much of an

exaggeration to say that in future American universities,

foreign professors will teach science and technology to

foreign students. Present statistics show that the

majority of science and technology Ph.D. holders are

foreign-born and more than 60% of foreign students do not

return home after the completion of their education,

preferring to pursue their careers in the USA. The

numbers of Chinese students who remain exceeds this

number.

Can the above phenomenon be properly labelled a

shift of scientific centre from the USA to elsewhere:

Asia, notably China? It should not be. It can be said

that the American society is supported by the vital

energy of immigrants who infiltrate the lower strata of

the society and try to move upward. As long as the

American society is open and generous to foreign

students, the world's scientific centre will remain there

forever.

Instead of learning foreign languages, Americans

93

c- .-- . ..--

supplement their shortage of scientific information by

absorbing scientific human resources from abroad into

their scientific community.

I have so far maintained that the migration of human

resources is a more important factor than the indication

of language change in centre-shift. This is more

evident in industrial science than academic. In the

place where no such open communication is guaranteed as

in industrial science, the most effective way of

information gathering is the relocation of human

resources with know-how type information installed in

them. Just as a company scouts a competitor's human

resources to enrich their information pool, peripheral

human resources will bring with themselves information

already existent in the periphery and enrich the open

American centre.

Japan staonated?

It is premature to say that Japan will become a

world centre of scientific activity comparable to the

American one. Japanese science has, however,

established certain distinct characteristics during its

postwar development: its origin goes back, indeed, to the

late nineteenth century. The transfer of technology

was closely associated with European migration and

settlement pattern first to the United States and then

othr parts of the world brought by settlers fro

94

northwestern rurope, witn remarkable exception of Japan",

where transfer has been carried out by natives. The

Japanese has been successful in collecting technical

information aborad without having accepted migrations of

migration of Western settlers.

Thus, the Japanese infrastructure of transfer is

quite different from the rest of the world. Japanese

science is characterized by its secluded nature and the

Japanese scientific community is secluded linguistically

from foreign scientists. Along with linguistic

seclusion, other systems like those of universities and

laboratories are designed only for the Japanese, or

Japanese-speaking people. While American believes that

competition and hybridization among different modes of

thought is indispensable in promoting and generating

scientific paradigms, the characteristics of Japanese

industrial science are known as inhouse co-operation and

co-ordination of researchers within a secluded system.

These researchers are well quality-controlled through a

homogeneous education and selection system.

To what extent and for how long these

characteristics can be maintained is open to question, as

it implies recruitment problems for the next generation

of scientists and engineers. If the present state of

affairs continues, Japan's foremost technology of micro-

” Nathan Rosenberg, Inside the black box. technoloav and economy (Cambridge, 1982) p.249

95

electronics will be embargoed by American-educated Asian

scientists who are deployed in the USA as well as NIEs

countries --- "Pacific Rim embargo, one might say --- and

isolated from the rest of the world. A Japanese micro-

electronic engineer boasted that "in the field of science

and technology, adding together second-rank scientists

and technologists of the USA and NIEs. countries are

meaningless: it is not the matter of quantity but

quality. Only top-notch technology like ours can

survive in market competition.88'00. This statement may

be true at this moment, but in view of the incessantly

changing nature of the research frontier of science and

technology, how long they can maintain it remains to be

seen. Even if Japanese micro-electronic technology

could maintain the status of world centre for some time,

a secluded language group has limitations of its own:

soon the centre-periphery hypothesis will take effect and

its hegemony will turn out to be short-lived.

Qualification of the central position is not only a

matter of excellence in the quality of science and

technology but also depends on the infrastructure of the

education-communcation system. In the nineteenth

century, German universities became the world centre for

loo NHK TV interview (1988). Thus is acknowledged by a 1987 Department of Defense report, stating that, of 25 microelectronic technologies, Japan led or was gaining the technological lead In 19: in 5 there was Japanese-US, parity: and in only 1 was the United States maintaining a technological lead. Glenn J. Mcloughlin, ‘Technology policy in Japan and the United States’, CRS Review July 1989, o.8

96

foreign studerli.5 to visit whilst the equally prestigious

French grands ecoles were not. This is partly because

German universities conferred Ph.D.s on foreign students.

In the twentieth century, American graduate schools also

attracted a great number of foreign students, because

they were generous in giving financial assistance and

conferring Ph.D. degrees on foreign students, apractices

which still ezists today. Most Chinese students choose

the USA for their study location, mainly because of the

fellowships available. It was recently recognized among

science policy-makers that the American system comprises

not only the generous givers, but, at the same time, the

receivers of information and human resources from the

periphery"'.

Japanese institutions are still far inferior to their

American counterparts in providing an infrastructure for

foreign students, despite recent governmental slogans of

"internationalizationll. There is a recent trend in

Japanese graduate schools to accept students from the

third world but impoverished Japanese university research

may not attract many foreign students compared to

American universities or elsewhere. They prefer to be

trained in much more prosperous, presently world-

renowned, industrial laboratories. Industrial science,

however, by its nature is not generally accessible to

“’ Nakayama Shlgeru Amerika daiaaku eno tab! (trip to American universities, 1988)

97

outsiders.

Furthermore, parallel to the USA since 197Os, though

in much less extent yet, a sign can be observable among

Japanese young generation to stay out of science and

technology in their career selection, in preference to

other professions of law, business and medicine. In the

late 1950s and early 1960s when Japan made a take-off to

high economic growth, science and technology attracted

best students but since then became less appealing,

perhaps except some limited fields like electronic

technology. They now think that science and technology

requires certain hard training but less rewarding in

future career compared to other disciplines. This trend

may be unavoidable in any affluent society. Then, like

the USA again, the maintenance of the excellence of

Japanese industrial sciene must depend on how to attract

scientific human resources of surrounding Asian

countries.

Thus, unless radical measures are taken towards

internationalisation in the near future, Japanese science

will remain isolated from the rest of the world and will,

in turn, stagnate.

98

STUDIES IN TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

1. Developments in Commercial Education (1983, English, Arabic). 2. The Organization of Productive Work in Technical and Vocational Education in the

United Kingdom (1983, English). 3. The Organization of Productive Work in Secondary Technical and Vocational

Education in the People’s Republic of Bulgaria (1983, English). 4. Policy, Planning and Administration of Technical and Vocational Education in

Ghana (1983, English). 5. Politique, planification et administration de I’enseignement technique et profession-

nel en Turquie (1983, French). 6. Politique. planification et administration de I’enseignement technique et profession-

nel en Algerie (1983, French). 7. Policy, Planning and Administration of Technical and Vocational Education in the

Netherlands (1983, English). 8. Policy, Planning and Administration of Technical and Vocational Education in India

(1983, English). 9. Computers in Technical Teacher Education in the United Kingdom (1984, English,

Arabic). 10. Computer Sciences in Vocational Teacher Education in Denmark (1984, English). 11. The Organisation of Educational and Vocational Guidance Services (1985,

English). 12. Policy, Planning and Management of Technical and Vocational Education in the

Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (1985, Arabic). 13. Elaboration des programmes d’enseignement technique et professionnel - URSS

(1983, French). 14. Content of General Education in Technical and Vocational Schools - USSR (1985,

English). 15. Les disciplines d’enseignement general dans les programmes de I’enseignement

technique et professionnel - France (1985, French). 16. Organization of Centralized Workshops - USSR (1985, English). 17. The Content of General Education in Technical and Vocational Education Program-

mes in the United Kingdom (1985, English). 18. Mobile Units for Vocational Education - USSR (1985, English). 19. Design and Use of Mobile Units for Technical and Vocational Education - Denmark

(1985, English). 20. Technical and Vocational Education in the Arab Gulf Countries (1985, Arabic). 21. Content of General Education in Programmes of Technical and Vocational Educa-

tion - Finland (1985, English). 22. Innovations in Technical Teacher Training - Ukrainian SSR (1985, English). 23. Training Apprentices in Industrial Training Workshops - German Democratic Re-

public (1985, English). 24. Innovations in Teacher Training in the Field of Agriculture - Federal Republic of

Germany (1985, English). 25. The Application of Computing in the Teaching and Learning Process in Technical

and Vocational Education in Australia (1985, English). 26. Content of General Education Programmes of Agricultural Technical and Vocation-

al Institutions - Ukrainian SSR (1987, English). 27. Distance Learning for Technical and Vocational Education at Pre-University Level

Establishments of Open Tech Type (1985, English). 28. Organization of Productive Work in Technical and Vocational Education in Kenya

(1985, English).

(continued on msfde of back cover)

STUDIES IN TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION (cont’d)

29. Policy, Planning and Administration of Technical and Vocational Education in China (1985, English).

30. Contenido de Education General en Curricula de Enserianza Tecnica y Profesional Secundaria y Post-Secundaria - Venezuela (1986, Spanish).

31. Technical Education and Vocational Training in Egypt (1987, Arabic). 32. Development of Technical and Vocational Education in the Humanistic Spirit (1987,

Enghsh). 33. The Impact of New Technology on Technical and Vocational Education (1987,

English).