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Prep School in Japan

Preparatory School or Bimbel in Bahasa Indonesia is not only popular in Indonesia. In Japan, most parents will send their children to study at prep school. Compared to Indonesian kids who take extra lessons for 2 hours per lesson per day, Japanese kids usually have longer hours at prep school. Take a look at their routine (commonly): Formal schools start at 9 AM and finish at 3 PM. The children (from elementary to senior high school) go to prep school directly after their formal school finishes. They study at prep school usually until 7 PM, or longer. Some children even arrive home at 11 PM. This condition once reported as a special report by one of the TV stations in Japan. What exactly Japanese parents want to achieve from sending their kids to prep school like this?

I’ve asked my good friend, Mika Kobayashi, from Nagasaki Japan to explain to me about prep school in Japan. Kobayashi-san is a mother of two. This is what she says about prep school for his son, Kazuma, a freshman in junior high school.

Kazuma started going to prep school since the end of his 5th grade.  Now he studies 3 times a week and the prep school finishes at 10 pm. What he does there is to take extra study for school material, and to prepare for term exam.  Not special program, very ordinary. A prep school usually costs 20,000-30,000 Yen per month, and costs 50,000 Yen or more during summer vacation.  It is actually painfull to pay that amount even for Japanese.  However, kids need to study more.

Children who want to enter high level schools such as good private schools need to study so hard without playing as kids. Parents have to spend so much time, more money and attention for those children. To be able to pass the exam to enter a good school needs a special program to study. Japanese children don’t study hard alone, so they need some attention and orders on what to do.

Parents feel supported by the prep school even though sometimes children don’t learn so much in that school.  So I think going to prep school does not gurantee children actually learn and study enough, therefore, parents need to follow how children do in that school so that they don’t miss anything. Another important thing is what those children want to do for their future. If their purpose of study is clear or if they have a dream, they will study differently.

So, do parents in Indonesia have the same opinion as parents in Japan regarding the benefits of prep school?

A couple of months ago I met an administrator from one of the biggest prep schools in Japan (sorry I cannot use his name or his company here). He told me that his 8-year-old son went home at 11 PM everyday because the son had to attend his prep school first. He said, “I didn’t study as hard as he is when I was a boy. But he has to do it to be able to get a good education. I felt sorry for him sometimes.”

However, there is something that he said about prep school that interests me. He said, “In prep school, we teach the children not only to be smarter. We teach them to be a better generation. Better than their parents, better than the other students in the world. That will make our country a better country.”

Well, even a prep school in Japan has a mission to develop their country. What about the prep schools here? Does their mission stop when their students passed an exam? Calling a private tutor is probably cheaper.

note:

This article is in English so that it can be read by wider audience including the sources of this article. We’d like to thank Kobayashi-san for her explanation about prep school in her country.