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Most high schools and virtually all universities require applicants to pass competitive entrance exams. In order to enter the best institutions, many students attend evening classes after school (juku). Over 90% of all students go on to graduate from senior high school and over 40% from university or college.
Japanese class sizes are larger than in any other country (In 2002 average class size of over 35 for 13 year olds), despite this, pupils loose less time to disorder issues in class than any other country (surveyed by OECD 2000), and if you take a readily comparable subject like maths, Japanese pupils top the proficiency tables (OECD 15 years old 2000).
A typical Japanese school child will learn around 1945 kanji over 9 years at school, at a rate of about 250 a year, these are prescribed by the Japanese ministry of Education as ‘essential for daily use’. The early graphemes tend to be pictographic or common ones with lower stroke counts. We show the year in which a kanji is taught at the bottom of each kanji page (this is sometimes used as a way of grouping the glyphs).
Learning kanji represents a major challenge for Westerners; the Japanese themselves sometimes call those who can speak their language: ‘hen gaijin, or "crazy foreigners." This may be one reason why approximately twenty-four Japanese students study in American educational institutions for every one American who studies in Japan.
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