Why recurrent education doesn’t prevail in Japan? : from view point of comparative study between Japan and Sweden

The aim of this paper is to explore the background of the lack of progress in recurrent education in Japan, while comparing Sweden, which is said to be the "advanced" country of recurrent education, with Japan, which is "delayed", from the concept of recurrent education.1 In Sweden, the term of “recurrent education” was used as same meaning of “25:4 rule”. That is the rule which means working adult whose age is more than 25 years old and years of work experience is more than 4 years can enter the university. This rule has set in 1969, but nowadays instead of “recurrent education”, the term “lifelong learning” has been popular in Sweden. Lifelong learning is same meaning as “working adult relearning”. The term of “adult relearning” corresponds to study and learning opportunity for working adult, which includes school education as well as vocational education and training in general.2 On the other hand, in Japan, the term of “recurrent education” was used in council report of lifelong learning in Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.After that, administrative efforts were made, and now it appears as a keyword to promote the "human resource development revolution" of the government\u27s 100-year life concept conference （2017）. Lifelong learning and "re-learning for working adults" are synonyms for recurrent education, but the ministry that advocates these words has a strong impression that it is the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Therefore, it is easy to imagine "re-learning for working adults" mainly for school education, especially for working adults at universities, junior colleges, and vocational schools.3 What is important in relation to the above is that in Sweden, labor and management have been involved in recurrent education （although it is weaker than in corporatist countries）. The advocacy of recurrent education in Sweden coincided with the rise of industrial democracy and the labor movement in the late 1960s, with the aim of "reorganizing post-secondary education in a new system that includes the shift of labor and learning."4 On the other hand, in Japan, the place for discussing school education （MEXT Central Education Council） and the place for discussing vocational ability development （vocational ability development council） are separated, and government, labor and management are in charge of school education and vocational education. The process of making policy decisions while being involved in the overall form of training is unclear and immature. Regarding labor-management relations, there are cross-company （industry-specific） negotiations such as the spring labor offensive（“Shunto” in Japanese）, but the company based labor union is the main body, and the priority of demand for education and training is generally low. In fact, according to the research result of the Japanese Trade Union Cnfederations Research Institute for Advancement of Living Standard 2019, the priority of education and training and self-development in the requirements for management at the single group headquarters is low.5 However, what should not be overlooked is that behind the low priority of union demands for education and training, there is an in-house education and training system centered on OJT and Off-JT that assume long-term employment. That is the point. In other words, the Japanese training regime is a large corporate-centric segmentalist, that is, Japanese vocational development relies on corporate education and training rather than school or public vocational training （Sato 2016; Sato 2019）. Sato 2020）. Then, the reason why recurrent education is not widespread is that, ironically, in-house education and training are sufficiently conducted.The problem is that the knowledge and skills formed by education and training belong to companies rather than individuals （Sato 2020: 135）. If the training regime is collective, the subject of recurrent education should be the individual, knowledge and skills should belong to the individual, and the knowledge and knowledge that an individual needs at a VET training institution, including a school, for his or her career. Acquire skills and form a career in a cross-company labor market. However, in the case of Japan, there are circumstances in which this is not the case. These are the things to keep in mind when thinking about recurrent education in Japan