The Direction of Vocational Education in Specialized High Schools and Regional Talent Development

As industrial structures and social systems grow more complex, the knowledge and skills young people need upon entering society are said to be becoming more advanced. This makes it necessary to reconsider how vocational education should operate at the high school level.

• Specialized high schools have long contributed to cultivating regional industrial talent
• Specialized high schools are increasingly expected to strengthen regional workforce development
• Historically, vocational education has been scaled back
• Two defining characteristics of specialized high school students
• Specialized high schools boost students’ motivation and clarify their postsecondary plans
• What challenges does the expansion of university admissions pose for specialized high schools?
• Cultivating a workforce to support regional industries through the conversion of specialized high schools into Colleges of Technology (KOSEN)

Specialized high schools have long contributed to cultivating regional industrial talent

Japan’s upper-secondary schools include general courses that provide a broad academic education, specialized courses that provide vocational education, and comprehensive courses that integrate general and vocational learning with an emphasis on career education. High schools that offer specialized courses are known as specialized high schools (専門高校) and, through the postwar high-growth era, they contributed to cultivating the human resources needed by regional industries. In recent years, workplace knowledge and skills are said to have become more advanced, and policy trends now aim to connect vocational education in specialized high schools more directly to higher education. However, gearing programs toward higher education inevitably requires expanding general-education components, which may create a dilemma for vocational education in specialized high schools.

Source: Compiled by the author

To start, here is a brief overview. Specialized high schools are institutions that offer vocationally oriented courses such as agriculture, engineering, commerce, fisheries, home economics, nursing, information, and welfare. They are said to have supported regional industries and contributed greatly to Japan’s high growth and industrialization（和田2024）. According to MEXT’s School Basic Survey, in FY1960 the share of students enrolled in specialized high schools peaked at 40%. In FY2023, enrollment was about 500,000 students, or 17.1% of all high school students. By field (share of all high school students): engineering 7.0%, commerce 5.6%, agriculture 2.4%, home economics 1.2%, nursing 0.4%, fisheries 0.2%, welfare 0.2%, and information 0.1%. Of Japan’s 6,528 full-time and part-time upper-secondary schools, 1,920 are specialized high schools (counting schools with multiple specialized departments more than once), or about 30% of the total.

Graduation requires 74 credits (one credit equals 35 fifty-minute class meetings). Specialized high schools must allocate 25 or more of those credits to specialized subjects. Up to 5 credits in foreign languages and 5 credits in subjects with purposes equivalent to specialized subjects may be counted toward this requirement.

In recent years, more graduates of specialized high schools have continued to higher education rather than entering the workforce directly. In FY2024, among 158,221 total graduates, 47.2% found employment (self-employment plus regular employment on permanent or fixed-term contracts), 25.5% advanced to universities (including junior colleges), and 24.7% advanced to specialized training colleges or public vocational development facilities.

Source: Compiled by the author based on based on MEXT, “Post-Graduation Outcomes by Course for Upper-Secondary School Graduates”（出所：文部科学省「高等学校卒業者の学科別進路状況」を元に筆者作成）

Specialized high schools are increasingly expected to strengthen regional workforce development

Since the beginning of the 2020s, government policy has increasingly placed expectations on vocational high schools to strengthen their efforts to develop human resources capable of supporting local industries.

The "High School Education Reform Promotion Project through Collaboration with Local Communities," launched in 2019, promotes initiatives to realize exploratory learning through the resolution of local issues by forming consortia between high schools, local governments, higher education institutions, and industry. The "Professional Type" initiative calls for the promotion of practical vocational education through collaboration and cooperation with local industry, focusing on specialized departments (和田2024).

The "Meister High School Project" was also implemented in 2021. The project's overview explains that "industrial structure and job content are rapidly changing due to the progress of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, digital transformation, and the sixth industrialization," and that vocational high schools "urgently need to develop vocational human resources capable of responding to the constant changes in industrial structure and job content" (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology 2024). Designated vocational high schools are to collaborate with industry and other stakeholders in revamping curricula and implementing educational practices.

The Basic Plan for Promoting Education (approved by the Cabinet on June 16, 2023), which covers the period from FY2023 to FY2027, calls for "enhancing career and vocational education" as a fundamental measure to "foster solid academic ability, broad knowledge, and the development of specialized liberal arts and practical vocational skills." This plan also calls for "promoting the dissemination of the efforts and results of vocational high schools that offer distinctive educational content." 

At the same time, in order to respond to the increasing sophistication of skills and knowledge required in the workplace, vocational education is expected to extend beyond the high school level and connect with higher education at universities, vocational schools, and other institutions.

For example, the Central Council for Education's Subcommittee on Primary and Secondary Education's 2020 summary and 2023 interim report recommend the development and implementation of an educational curriculum that is not limited to three years, including the utilization of specialized courses at vocational high schools, reorganization into technical colleges, and the development and implementation of a consistent curriculum in collaboration with higher education institutions. This shows the policy intention to enhance the educational content at vocational high schools and strengthen vocational education.

Historically, vocational education has been scaled back

Historically, however, vocational education has tended to be scaled down.

Source: Compiled by the author

After the war, reconstruction policies called for the development of mid-career engineers through vocational education. The Industrial Education Promotion Act was enacted in 1951, providing national subsidies, encouraging the stable operation of specialized (vocational) departments, and encouraging the independence of vocational high schools. Furthermore, as Japan entered the period of rapid economic growth, the 1966 Central Council for Education report aimed to diversify specialized departments.

However, around this time, the spread of Japanese-style employment led to a growing trend toward general education, and the hierarchy of specialized education became increasingly important. Companies generally recruited new graduates and trained them in-house, and students' employment opportunities came to depend not on vocational knowledge and skills but on their "basic and general abilities" and "trainability" (児美川2015). As a result, vocational education lost importance in schools and universities, and newly established schools and departments emphasized academics, detached from general education and specific careers. This, combined with the economic downturn caused by the oil shock and other economic crises and the increase in the number of students seeking to continue on to high school, led to a clear hierarchy between general and specialized high schools (川下2013), with general high schools absorbing the increased high school enrollment rate. According to Kawashita (2013), this led to "involuntary enrollment and dropout at vocational high schools becoming a problem."

Against this backdrop of a decline in vocational education, in 1995 the Research and Study Council on Measures to Revitalize Vocational Education, a private advisory body to the Director-General of the Elementary and Secondary Education Bureau of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (then Ministry of Education), issued its "Path to Specialists" report. This report considered vocational high school education to be the "first step" toward becoming a "specialist." It also stated that vocational education should be positioned within lifelong education, including formal education, and that high school should emphasize basic and fundamental education (和田2024). In the 1999 revision of the curriculum guidelines, the number of required credits for specialized subjects at vocational high schools was reduced from "30 or more credits" to "25 or more credits." This number of required credits for specialized subjects is the lowest since the end of the war.

Two defining characteristics of specialized high school students

As mentioned above, the number of required vocational education credits has been reduced, but vocational high school education has still contributed to the identity development of students seeking employment.

Minamimoto (2016) attempted to describe the situation of students attending vocational high schools through a survey of vocational high school principals. The survey targeted 1,100 principals, with 591 valid responses. Questions about lifestyle, learning status, and career aspirations were asked on a four-point scale (ranging from "very applicable" to "not applicable at all").

Minamimoto's (2016) survey revealed two major characteristics of vocational high school students. First, students have good lifestyle habits and are obedient to instruction, but have issues with initiative. Many principals gave positive evaluations of students' lifestyle habits. Items such as "few latenesses or absences," "punctuality," and "cleaning properly" were evaluated positively by 80-90% of principals. Furthermore, nearly 70% of principals responded negatively to the statement, "Many students dislike steady work that requires patience."

In contrast, the assessment acknowledged that there were issues with student initiative. Regarding statements such as, "They have confidence in themselves and are able to demonstrate their individuality," and "They are proactive in everything they do and are able to demonstrate leadership skills," around 60% of principals responded, "Not very applicable" or "Not applicable at all." Furthermore, while students enroll with a clear intention to find employment, nearly 60% of principals acknowledged that the statement, "They enroll because others recommend it, without giving deep thought to their own future," was true, suggesting that students' motivation for enrolling and studying at vocational high schools is passive.

Source: Compiled by the author

Specialized high schools boost students’ motivation and clarify their postsecondary plans

Second, education at vocational high schools improves motivation and clarifies career aspirations for many students. Over 90% of principals gave positive evaluations of statements such as, "Many students demonstrate their motivation and ability in the classrooms where practical exercises and experiments are conducted," and "Because there are many experiments and practical training sessions and much of the learning is hands-on, many students deepen their understanding and acquire knowledge, skills, and techniques." Nearly 90% of principals also gave positive evaluations of, "Many students gain an understanding of the content and significance of work through their studies and develop a career mindset," while just over 80% gave positive evaluations of, "Many students develop a clearer career mindset and become interested in the content they learn." Perhaps due to the effectiveness of specialized education, over 70% of principals commented that "Many students aim to find employment after graduation in a field where they can utilize the results of their studies in specialized subjects." However, some also noted that there are a small number of students who find that specialized subject studies do not match their interests or who show no interest.

Minamimoto's (2016) survey shows that students who previously lacked initiative converge on employment in occupations related to what they learned through vocational education at vocational high schools. Nakazawa, Abe, and Ishii (2009) also state that for students, vocational high schools "have a strong aspect of being a place where they can develop a career identity related to the jobs they are likely to have in the future." Vocational education at vocational high schools can be said to function as a track that supplies human resources to fields that align with the educational content of local industries.

Source: Compiled by the author

What challenges does the expansion of university admissions pose for specialized high schools?

Expanding access to higher education may not be consistent with the track function of vocational high schools. To advance to higher education, students require general and universal knowledge acquired through general education rather than knowledge and skills related to a specific occupation. Alternatively, students may seek entry through methods other than traditional academic exams, such as AO and self-recommendation exams, which are becoming more common due to the declining birthrate. Both of these options pose challenges from the perspective of developing human resources to support local industries.

If general education is expanded, vocational high schools are likely to become closer to comprehensive high schools in terms of their curriculum. According to the 2023 Basic School Survey, the employment rate for comprehensive high schools was 22.4%, less than half that of vocational high schools. Furthermore, the "other" category (including students who have failed entrance exams), which refers to those who have not yet decided on their career path at graduation, is 5.4%, the same level as general high schools (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology). Comprehensive high schools "promote career education that considers the entire life of students" (小西2020), and may not be suited to an education focused on developing human resources for local industries. Therefore, this is inconsistent with the policy objective of strengthening vocational high schools.

Meanwhile, non-traditional methods of entering higher education, such as AO entrance exams and self-recommendation exams, may also have a negative impact on the acquisition of specialized subjects. Koga (2016), who studied career guidance at schools offering diverse career paths, points out that career guidance that deviates from the framework of "entrance exams and employment = academic exams" and focuses on school reports and interview practice can lead to the study of test-taking techniques. This, too, would be inconsistent with the goal of developing human resources for local industries. These are the challenges that face the connection between vocational education and higher education.

Cultivating a workforce to support regional industries through the conversion of specialized high schools into Colleges of Technology (KOSEN)

Vocational high schools are expected to foster human resources for local industries, and the enhancement of their educational content through connections with higher education is being considered. However, given that vocational high schools foster students' professional identities through consistent vocational education and serve as a link to local industries, simply expanding general education and linking them to universities and vocational schools does not necessarily contribute to the desired goal.

Rather, weakening the emphasis on "advancement to higher education" and strengthening specialized education within vocational high schools is considered the path to achieving this goal. Such education is already being provided at technical colleges (KOSEN). Students enter KOSEN after graduating from junior high school and develop expertise through five years of integrated education. The Central Council for Education's report also recommended converting vocational high schools into KOSENs or utilizing specialized courses to study more specialized content after graduating from the three-year core program. This direction is considered to be more conducive to the development of human resources for local industries. Because KOSENs primarily focus on industrial studies and are few in number, they do not necessarily align with the local industrial structure. The "expansion" of vocational high schools could be an option to fill the gaps left by technical colleges.

However, the possibility that vocational high schools may converge students' career choices requires separate consideration of what this means for each student's life plan. A system design that is beneficial to both the region and each individual student will be required.

(Revised and expanded from the article in the May 2024 issue of "EN-ICHI FORUM")

References

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