Poll: Japanese students lack drive

03/03/2006The Asahi Shimbun

Japanese high school students are less motivated than their peers in the United States, China and South Korea to improve their marks, develop relationships or do anything constructive in their daily lives, a survey shows.

In fact, the survey released Wednesday shows that Japanese students have a strong sense of being just like everyone else, and tend to have a blase attitude about what to do with their time.
The survey was conducted by the Japan Youth Research Institute from October to December last year on 1,000 to 3,000 randomly chosen high school students from each country.
In Japan, 1,342 students responded.

The responses from the Japanese differed significantly from those in the other three countries when asked what matters most to them.

Students were allowed to give multiple replies from a list of 16 items, including: to play with friends or do what they enjoy; to develop a talent or skill; and to become friendly with someone they like of the opposite sex.

The U.S., Chinese and South Korean high school students gave many positive answers. But the responses from the overwhelming majority of Japanese students indicate they have no particular things they really want to do.

For example, more than 70 percent of the respondents in the other countries said they hope to improve their academic performances. The figure for Japan was 33 percent.

About 40 percent of the Japanese said they hope their relationships with friends go well, the most common item selected by the Japanese.

But the figure for that category was 67 percent for the U.S. students, 53 percent for the Chinese and 44 percent for the South Koreans.

(IHT/Asahi: March 3,2006)

http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200603030160.html