February 2013
The 2012 Survey on the Way of Life and Attitudes of Junior and Senior High School Students (Part II)
Hiroko Murata
The second report on the “Survey on the Way of Life and Attitudes of Junior and Senior High School Students,” which was conducted by NHK in the summer of 2012, analyzes junior and senior high students’ approach to studies and their parents’ feelings about it.
The out-of-school study hours of junior and senior high students showed a tendency to decrease until 2002, when the previous survey was held, but ceased to decrease in this latest survey. When asked whether they think “you can make a good living in the future if you study hard,” nearly 80% of both junior and senior high school students responded that they “agree.” Compared to ten years ago, those who “agree” increased dramatically, showing a distinctive rise in junior and senior high schoolers who think studies will have a positive effect on their living in the future.
Meanwhile, many parents are concerned about their children’s academic performance as well as future job scarcity, and 70% of fathers and mothers respectively responded that they “spare no expense for education of the child.”
Furthermore, it is revealed that parents’ academic backgrounds and living standards affect the attitude towards the burden of educational costs. Many of the parents who believe that their living standards are low responded that “educational cost is a burden to the family budget.” Not many of the children of these parents go to cram school, and these children’s study hours are short. However, even among those who find their living standards low, approximately 60% answered that they do not spare money to educate their children.