Last week, two major Japan news sites (Japan Times and Japan Today), that I like to visit, reported that Yokohama City on Sunday, 5th April, inaugurated the Yokohama Science Frontier High School, a new public high school emphasizing the teaching of advanced science and technology. The aim of this school is to nurture Japanese scientists who will be active all over za warudo.
Landmark Tower, Japan's tallest building, is in Yokohama city
In order to provide its students with “science literacy curricula” focusing on experiment-based science subjects, the school has tied up with universities, institutions and corporations so that renowned academics and scientists can act as special advisers. Students will study such fields as biological science, the environment, nanotechnology and information and communications, before specializing in an area of their choice. They are expected to write up their study results in English, school officials said.The city of Yokohama has provided the school with advanced equipment and facilities.
My comments:
This is a great development as it will help to nurture scientific minds from an early age. They will not waste their precious time with curricula that will not lead them anywhere. The other good thing is that they will do their studies in English.
When I was in high school, I wasted my precious time with Chichewa literature (Kalenga ndi Mzake, Mkwatibwi Okhumudwa, Nthondo, Miyambo ya Achewa etc.) and grammar (mphatikira pakati, mphatikira pambuyo, mneni, mfotokozi). Take note that no offense is intended against scholars who specialize in these areas. Actually, as a career counselor, I advise people to specialize in specific fields based on their ability and interests. So if you are good at Chichewa, or History, or any other subject, and you have a huge interest in it, I encourage you to go for it wholeheartedly.You will surely have a great career if you work hard. Similarly, it is not good for you to be tortured with Calculus, Trigonometry, Electrostatics, Electromagnetism etc.
Let me continue with my story. In my secondary school days, I also studied a lot of history which is not important to my career path. For instance, of what use is Vietnam’s history to me? When I told my Vietnamese friends about Battle of Dien Bien Phu, in which the French were comprehensively defeated by the Vietnamese in 1954, they were so surprised. Actually, they knew literally nothing about Malawi, my home country, until they met me. Everyday, history is being made in different parts of za warudo. Not every bit of history is good for our kids. Let us teach our kids only relevant history.
Malawi and other developing countries must emulate Japan’s example. They should set up at least one public high school dedicated to science and technology. The equipment and facilities might not be advanced as in Japan. But our promising scientific brains will not waste their time on non-scientific curricula like most of us did. Entrance into these high schools should be purely based on merit. Separate written entrance exams (Mathematics, Science, Logic and English), similar to the ones which used to be administered for entrance into the Kamuzu Academy, have to be administered. A group of students from across the country who do better than others will then have to be invited for interviews. A list of successful students will be decided after these interviews.
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19 users commented in " Yokohama City launches high school dedicated to Science and Technology! "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackClement, excellent comment on what other countries can do to emulate Japan. Countries like yours have a huge baggage carried over from the colonial times and it will take time to drop that and become truly global in outlook and education. Politics usually play havoc with the system, though I admit that I do not much about what happens in Malawi.
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Clement Nyirenda says:
April 14th, 2009 at 9:30 am
@Nicole: I agree. Colonialism left a lot of problems in Africa. But I am of the view that we have come too far now. We should have made a lot of progress in the past four decades or so. I am told the likes of Malaysia were poorer than the likes of Ghana 50 years ago. But now Malaysia is much more advanced. Our leaders are usually shortsighted. They do not plan for the long term. As if that is not enough, some of them use Africa’s natural resources to enrich themselves at the expense of the citizens. In some cases, the same natural resources are being used to finance civil wars. Too bad!
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Good post clement , and thanks for the tweet . I am now following you on twitter
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Clement Nyirenda says:
April 14th, 2009 at 9:22 am
@Gagan:Thanks. It was nice to link up with you. Let us continue working together.
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Nice. I’m hoping that schools in the US follow suite.
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Clement Nyirenda says:
April 14th, 2009 at 9:21 am
@Donnie: That would be great.
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The schools in the USA are so badly in need of these kinds of schools it’s ridiculous. I really believe that dummies are working there way out of our school system.
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I think it’s really valuable that the Japanese school has partnered with universities, and scientists and academics will serve as advisors. These mentors will be able to explain why a certain science or math topic is useful and important. Students will hopefully be exposed to cutting edge research topics.
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I’m no expert on this matter, but it seems like a lot of countries have a much more vocational approach to education than the United States (Germany, China, Taiwan come to mind) – where kids at a much younger age are funneled into very specific career paths.
I can certainly agree that studying grammars of rare languages is probably not an efficient use of time – but what are your thoughts on the greater commercial success of the United States over the past 50 years versus countries with more vocational education systems?
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Hi Nice Post from you … it will be useful for other countries to follow their Steps to become better in science and Technology.
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wow i really appreciate the kind of japanese government supports to its people. unlike in the philippines where there are intelligent citizens but lacking support from the state in terms if financial and material resources.
we have known that japanese technologies is at par compare to others. and this could be an excellent things.
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Japan is doing everything like usually. They are the first in technology and education. And now there are the first in technological education.
I think studying is such a school is a dream of many talented students from the third world countries….
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This is a unique high school in the world and I think that it is good that the scientists from the start to learn in the professional school. I think that this high school will be attractive for young scientists and to attract the attention of other students who start in high school.
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Japan is surely one of the best countries when it comes to renovations and improvements. This really shows how much ahead are they with looks on future. Congrats to them, these are really great news, because every deep specialty like this one, will give much better results.
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that’s why i want to visit in yokohoma city.thanks for sharing such good photo.
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Sounds like a nice idea. Japan is always good when it comes to innovations.
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It appears that the Japan Today link is no longer working
It says “The requested article has expired, and is no longer available.”
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The Japan Today link is still working. It think the story is not appearing due to a software mishap.
Clement Nyirenda´s last blog post..Responsible e-waste recycling
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I’m Impressed with the building, wow….. just cant wait, when Indonesia will be like this….
Very good info btw, thanks a lot!
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