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CHAPTER SPREAD OF EDUCATION AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

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