Word: gakureki
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Haruo's grueling day is not uncommon in Japan, where a child's chances for future success in politics, business or the professions depend heavily on the prestige of his gakureki-literally, his academic background. One index of the increasing pressure on young Japanese to pile up an impressive gakureki is the phenomenal rise of after-hours or weekend schools known as juku. Their main purpose: to help students cram for tough competitive entrance exams required to get into the most select high schools and the best colleges...
...everyone agrees. Toyokichi Endo, a Tokyo elementary schoolteacher who is a leading critic of the juku, calls them "unhealthy and unnatural" institutions that turn children into "monsters capable of coping with entrance tests but little else." Others worry about the gakureki system that has spawned the juku. The merciless competition for places in top schools has been deplored by, among others, Sony Corp. President Akio Morita, author of a 1966 book on "the importance of disregarding gakureki...
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