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PART Issues and Perspectives ofHigher Education

1 Higher Education before World War

Institutions of higher education of a distinctive type in the pre-war period were higher schools. According to the Higher School Order of 1894, higher schools were intended primarily to be engaged in teaching "specialized subjects." and they were entitled to provide preparatory courses for applicants to the Imperial University.

However, because of the increase in the number of imperial universities and other reasons. higher schools failed to develop departments responsible for specialized subjects. Instead, they developed university preparatory courses only. Thus higher schools became preparatory schools for imperial universities.

In 1918 a new "Higher School Order" was promulgated. The Order defined the aim of higher schools as "to provide terminal higher general education and to place special emphasis on contributing to the enhancement of the moral quality of Japanese citizens."

This definition aimed at changing the character of higher schools which had been characterized as university preparatory schools. Under the Order, higher schools became a kind of institution of higher general education. In accordance with the plan for expanding institutions of higher education which was formulated after the enactment of the Order. a number of new higher schools under the new system were set up one after another in different regions. These higher schools obtained notable results in providing the character formation of a great number of students.

Competition for admissions to higher schools was very severe. For example, the ratio of the total number of applicants to successful applicants for national higher schools was 73 to 10 in 1935, while there was practically no competition for university admissions. This was due to the fact that the total number of places for entrants to national higher schools (which represented the majority of all higher schools) was roughly equal to the total number of places for entrants to national universities, and that as a principle all entrants to university preparatory courses at higher schools were allowed to advance to undergraduate courses at universities.