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INTRODUCTION. GENERAL SURVEY OF THE SCALE OF SCHOOL EDUCATION
1 Educational Population


As of 1975, a total of about 25 million students were receiving education in schools (miscellaneous schools as well as all levels of schools, ranging in level from kindergartens to universities and colleges; the same shall apply hereinafter) throughout Japan. This figure, the largest since the school system was inaugurated in Japan, is equivalent o the total population of 17 prefectures, including the five prefectures of Chugoku Region, the four prefectures of Shikoku and the eight prefectures of Kyushu.

Incidentally, the proportion of the educational population to the total population of Japan stood at 22.5% as of 1975, with 22% in 1972 as the lowest during the twenty-five years ending in 1975 and 26.2% in 1961 as the highest.

Transition in the percentage of educational population since 1950, as classified by type of school, is shown in Chart 0-1.

Chart 0-1. Transition in Educational Population

It indicates that, while the educational population at the elementary and lower secondary school levels, where the enrollment rate is nearly 100%, changes in parallel transition with the population of children in the corresponding age group, the educational population both at the level of higher education provided in universities, junior colleges, etc. and at the level of kindergartens keep growing regardless of the increase or decrease in the population of youths or children in the corresponding age group. Meanwhile, the educational population at the upper secondary school level had been growing year by year till 1960, but came to move thereafter in correspondence to the increase or decrease in the population of youths in the corresponding age group, reflecting the rise in the percentage of lower secondary school graduates going on to upper secondary schools.

Viewing transition in the educational population in Japan since 1950, the educational population at the upper secondary school level had ceased to expand during the second half of the l960s, while that at the levels of kindergarten and higher education has remained in the process of expansion, aside from that at the level of compulsory education, where children's enrollment rate had already reached nearly 100% in the second half of the Meiji Era.

Transition in the educational population at the level of secondary and higher education since the Meiji Era is shown in Chart 0-2.

Chart 0-2. Transition since Meiji Era in Educational Population at the Secondary and Higher Education Level


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