[...]... in Chapter 6 The other thing about Japanese society which powerfully shapes the system to be described—another product of history and culture—is the kind of moral feelings the Japanese have about needing to be good at their jobs Whether because of the efforts of state agencies to preach the national need for competence over the last century or for some other reason, the Japanese do tend to feel that... trained, and (iv) their effectiveness in those jobs if they get them, and that effects in each of those dimensions feed back on the others These considerations do surface in our debates, but always covertly The anybody-can-be-taughtanything-provided -the- teacher’s-good-enough ethos of the training industry all too often dominates—in Britain, for instance, in discussions of Training Workshops for the unemployed... is further towards the ‘basic’ as opposed to the ‘applied’/‘developmental’ end of the spectrum in Japan than in Britain The countervailing factors are (a) the performance of the school system in providing mastery of the basics, (b) the acceptance by employers that the responsibility for detailed job-oriented training is theirs, (c) the heavy involvement (in quite arduous quasi-voluntary leg -work) of... in the 19 80s to make the Japanese more, as it made the British less, complacent The prolonged recession of the 19 90s did a lot to erode that new-found self-confidence, although these swings of mood had more effect on what the management journals said should be done than on what people actually did Still, as Chapter 5 suggests in some detail, a Japanese factory is more likely than a British factory to. .. something to avoid because it puts you in danger of getting the sack That also counts for something It is a factor in the response which private firms show to government initiatives, and in the initiatives they take without prompting It is a factor in the response of the individual workers to enterprise Preface xiii programmes It is a factor, too, in the vigour of the private enterprise training sector described... For the last hundred years, the national need to build up skills has been part of a collective national drive to strengthen Japan’s international position At first it was a matter of national survival That assured—by the time the delegation returned in 18 72 the objective became to make the country strong enough, in the first instance, to persuade foreigners to amend the ‘unequal treaties’ which they... That the provision of training courses and of the opportunity to enter them—individual learning accounts, training vouchers, etc —is the most important contribution the state can make to its citizens’ skill acquisition The Japanese, by contrast, seem to believe that the the state has two prime functions in this field: (a) to ensure the basic trainability of all its citizens—giving them confidence in their... rely to some extent on the market to provide individuals with what they want—i.e opportunities to develop the talents they need to sell in the market in order to get the income they desire the market needs a lot of supplementation by the state Of course, that argument from individual interests has never, anywhere, been a complete account of the reasons why liberal democracies have interested themselves... treaties’ which they forced on Japan in the 18 50s, a quarter-century struggle still well remembered today, and the subject, not surprisingly, of a multi-billion yen movie in 19 86 Japan’s international position today, and her ranking in the various pecking orders of international competition, are beyond all except the wilder dreams of the Japanese of the 18 80s—or of the 19 50s, for that matter But still, old... But the important role played by these cultural factors in shaping the Japanese vocational education and training (hereafter VET) system does not mean that there are no lessons to be learned from it There may well be, to begin with, hints to be found in individual institutional devices for financing training and motivating take-up There seems, also, to be a good deal which might be learned from nuts-and-bolts . the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-4 1 5 -1 488 1- 2 (hbk) ISBN 0-4 1 5 -1 5345-X (pbk) ISBN 0-2 0 3-0 15 7 5-4 . on the others. These considerations do surface in our debates, but always covertly. The anybody-can-be-taught- anything-provided -the- teacher’s-good-enough ethos of the training industry all too. only in the 19 80s to make the Japanese more, as it made the British less, complacent. The prolonged recession of the 19 90s did a lot to erode that new-found self-confidence, although these swings