Abstract:
Japan is the country that has performed an economic miracle in the world after the
Second World War. At present it is the second most successful largest country in the
world, economically and technologically, and is second only to the United States of
America. When Japan was a developing country in the early nineties, they had a problem
of developing the country economically due to inadequate natural resources. Human
resources were the only resources they had. As a result, they were wise enough to decide
that providing better education to the people of the nation was the one and only solution
to building the nation up. Immediately after the Meiji restoration, Japan quickly took the
necessary action through Education Ordinance and other educational policies to introduce
a systematic educational process to the country. Therefore, this study explores the
educational policies of Japan, especially after the Meiji Restoration and explores major
factors that militated, in determining educational policies and policy changes in Japan.
Further, it extracted any lessons that could be learnt from Japan. Data for this study was
from primary and secondary data sources and analysis was done descriptively. The
findings reveal the significant characteristics of Japanese educational policies and the
policy change and the factors that affected in determining policies in Japan. Further, it
lists out the lessons that can be learnt from Japan. Since Japan was opened to the outside
world in 1868, intemationalization, industrialization and technological advancement took
place to a great extent much, earlier and faster. Japan welcomed these changes because
Japan was not a colonial country and as a result, it was independent enough to take useful
decisions and implement them as a nation. There is no doubt that the success of Japan
was their well planned education system and it can be concluded that, the efficiency and
the effectiveness ofthe educational policies and policy changes depended greatly on the
loyalty in the hearts of the people of the nation, for one?s motherland. Further,
cooperative commitment and devotion are tools that gear the country's advancement
towards success
