CHAPTER SPREAD OF EDUCATION AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
2. Historical Review of Spread of Education in Japan
(5) Expansion of Higher Education
b. Enrollment by Major Field of Study
Enrollments have increased in each major field of study in institutions
of higher education. As compared with enrollments in 1935, 1960 enrollments increased
8.4 times in home economics, 6.9 times in engineering, 3.9 times in law, economics
and literature, 3.7 times in agriculture, 1.9 times in science and 1.1 times
in medicine, dentistry and pharmacology. Except in the beginning of the Meiji
Era when more than 50 per cent of the students were enrolled in the sciences,
due to the traditional study of the Dutch learning, the liberal arts have always
enrolled more than 50 per cent of all students. The post-war increase in the
percentage of students in teacher training is due to the fact that normal schools,
which were institutions of secondary education level in 1935, were elevated to
college level in 1943 and assimilated into the new university system after World
War . Many
women students, who increased rapidly in number in the postwar period, have chosen
home economics as their major field of study. It is noted that the percentage
of the students enrolled in the sciences has been decreasing in spite of the
recent requirements for the expansion of this field and the increase in the actual
number of students majoring in engineering and the sciences.
Figure 12. Trends in Enrollment in Institutions of Higher
Education, by Major Field of Study
Figure 13. Percentage Distribution of Students in Institutions
of Higher Education, by Group of Major Fields of Study