The invention, gaming, and persistence of the hensachi (‘standardised rank score’) in Japanese education

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the development of the hensachi system in Japanese education from the 1960s when it first appeared as a de facto measure for scholastic achievement. Unlike absolute scoring systems (such as A-level grades) hensachi gave an indication of the probability of getting a place on a particular course at a particular school or university rather than telling applicants where the bar was set in order to have a chance of being offered a place. Private companies quickly saw the opportunity to collate the huge amounts of data needed to obtain accurate hensachi bell curve distributions and began operating practice exams (mogi shiken) in schools across Japan. From the mid-1970s onwards, hensachi increasingly became seen as the source of many educational ‘evils’ in Japan and there were many attempts to ban its use. It was blamed for cramming, examination hell, and a focus on educational scores rather than learning. The system was also being used by teachers and schools to short cut the real examination system. The final section of the paper explores why, despite these concerns, repeated predictions of the demise of hensachi have proved to be premature.

KEYWORDS:

• Japan
• education
• hensachi
• admissions
• university

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Hiroyuki Oka for help in collecting some of the Japanese-language materials on which this paper has drawn.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. There is no definitive English translation for hensachi so, for the purposes of this paper, we have decided to translate hensachi as ‘standardised rank score’ since the idea that hensachi provides a ranking based on a standard deviation bell curve distribution of a wide population of students all taking the same test is how it is most commonly understood in Japan.

2. For example, if in a maths test, student A = 76, B = 55, C = 58, D = 100, E = 65, F = 60, G = 50, H = 0, then, average (for all the students) = (76 + 55 + 58 + 100 + 65 + 60 + 50 + 0) ÷ 8 = 58, and standard deviation = .

So, student A’s hensachi = . Likewise, student D = 65.9, and student H = 28 (Zeng, 1999, p. 107).

There are no official or government (local or national) sanctioned hensachi, but every senior high school, commercial school, technological school, and every programme at a higher educational institution will have a hensachi score ascribed to it by different commercial players. The way in which companies calculate the hensachi of programmes varies considerably. In some cases, the hensachi score shows the score you need to have a 50% probability of gaining entry; in some cases an 80% chance; in some cases, the probability is not clearly presented at all. Hensachi scores in most cases, however, range around 10 marks above or below 50 for each standard deviation, and statistically only 5% of any sample can in total be either above 70 or below 30. A high hensachi, say 70, means a student is better than at least 97% of the population on that test. In 2018, the highest recorded hensachi entrance course for a university course was 80 for the University of Tokyo Science III programme. At the other end of the scale, a course with a hensachi entry score in 2018 in the 30s or even low 40s would probably be able to offer a place to anyone who applied. The hensachi of every course at every university in Japan can be seen at: http://daigakujyuken.boy.jp/ which works on a scale of 35–80.

While hensachi is generally associated with entry to senior high school or university, some junior high schools and even elite private elementary schools now have hensachi scores attached to them to guide those preparing for their entrance exams. For some children, therefore, the concept of hensachi may be familiar even as young as the age of five.

3. In a collection of comments from fellow 14-year-olds about the so-called Kobe ‘school killer’ who murdered two schoolchildren in May 1997, one appears to express empathy with the killer in saying, ‘I have not gone so far as to take revenge on school or teachers but I often feel stressed with school or hensachi … I understand the boy’s feeling’ (Yoneyama, 1999, p. 4).

4. Although, technically, compulsory education in Japan is only until the end of junior high school, over 90% of students since the mid-1970s, and today over 98% of students, continue to senior high school. All senior high schools are ranked hierarchically based on their academic level and they function as the key institutions of selection and allotment of children in Japan (Arakawa, 2001, p. 167). Moreover, as Ogawa (2000, pp. 145–146) has pointed out, unlike senior high school graduates—who can retake university entrance exams several times as what is known as rōnin (literally, masterless samurai, since they no longer had a ‘master institution’ to which they belong)—junior high schools have always felt a responsibility to send their students directly to senior high schools without a gap.

5. The annual Asahi Daigaku Rankingu (University Ranking) has, since 1994, actually provided around 80 indicators of the comparative quality of universities from the number of overseas students to the assessments of high school teachers to patents registered to the number of models in female fashion magazines. The annual Daigaku no Jitsuryoku (The Real Power of Universities) published since 2008 by the Yomiuri newspaper group focuses more on the quality of education provision, curriculum design, and teaching in its rankings and has rankings of indicators such as dropout rates, remedial education programmes, job placements supported by alumni associations, and class sizes for language education. The weekly magazine Shūkan Tōyō Keizai also regularly puts out comparative data on Japanese universities, concentrating on financial indicators such as expenditure on education and research per student, research income, student–faculty ratios, annual income of alumni at age 30, as well as the ratio of increase/decrease of applications and capital adequacy ratios.

6. Shimano also publishes another ranking book based on the employment records on graduation of university students under the title Shūshoku de Toku suru Daigaku, Son suru Daigaku Ranking (Ranking of Universities by those which Win and those which Lose in Job Placements).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Roger Goodman

Roger Goodman is the Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese at the University of Oxford. He is also Warden of St Antony’s College. He is the author and editor of numerous books and articles on aspects of Japanese education and social policy including: A sociology of Japanese youth: From returnees to NEETs (with Yuki Imoto and Tuukka Toivonen, Routledge, 2012); Higher education and the state: Changing relationships in Europe and East Asia (with Takehiko Kariya and John Taylor, Symposium Books, 2012); and, The ‘big bang’ in Japanese higher education: The 2004 reforms and the dynamics of change (with Jerry Eades and Yumiko Hada, Trans Pacific Press, 2005).

Chinami Oka

Chinami Oka is a DPhil candidate in History at the University of Oxford (St Antony’s College). Her main research is on the transnational and intellectual history of modern Japan. She is particularly interested in local, non-state thinkers and their ideas forgotten in lacunas of taken-for-granted narratives. She is a convenor of the Oxford International History of East Asia Seminar.