East Asian Education, Labour and Equity
Rethinking the Social: East Asian Education, Labour and Equity / Ian Austin
One of "the most striking things about South Korea and Taiwan, and even more so Japan, is the increase in the ratios of the skilled labour force over the past 40 years. This is measured not just in terms of level of education attained, but in terms of the content of the education" (Wade 1993, 433).
In pursuing an ideological commitment to industrialisation, the East Asian national elite have, sacrifice a measure of material property in order to gain culture, skill, and powers of united production; it must sacrifice some present advantage in order to insure to itself future ones (List 1905, 117). The Meiji Oligarchy committed Japan to technological acquisition under the Charter Oath (1868). Upon Restoration they quickly moved to institute a Western education system over traditional Confucian scholarship and adapted continental European state educational mechanisms by establishing a national education system. Initially limited by a lack of state revenue, by the first decade of the twentieth century Japan had established a compulsory national elementary and secondary education system, an industry-based vocational training system, and a tertiary system focused upon political and technical training. The Supreme Command of the Allied Powers (SCAP) in Japan did not signal an end to the Meiji system of education. In fact those initatives introduced by SCAP were repealed by the mid-1950s. The Meiji education system was instituted on a limited scale by the Meiji colonial administrators in both Taiwan (1895-1945) and Korea (1910-1945). It provided these states with the national administrative elite of the post-1945 period which has been maintained and adapted under the Kumomintang (KMT) in Taiwan and through the commitment of General Park Chung Hee (1961-1979) to industrialisation under the Meiji Kokutai ideology.
For most of the post-1945 period, the East Asian states' low-wage levels and industrial harmony was defined by Neoclassical economists as "an almost classic case of an economy following its comparative advantage and reaping the gains predicted by conventional economic theory" (Matthews 1994, 29-90). However, Meiji Japan's "abundance of cheap labour revealed in the lower level of real wages in Japan should not be viewed as an advantage in itself" as other nations also possessed abundant cheap labour (Ohkawa 1985, 4). Meiji Japan was to adapt from continental Europe, principally Germany, a vocational and technical emphasis within the education system. As Friedrich List (1905) perceived with respect to the link between education and training on the one level, and industry on the other, "there scarcely exists a manufacturing business which has not relations to physics, mechanics, business, chemistry, mathematics, and or to the arts of design" (List 1905, 162). Meiji Japan also adapted state-financed union organisations, employment stability in key industries, remuneration structures including performance based bonuses and welfare provisions. All these state industrial mechanisms have provided for industrial harmony and success which saw Japan by the mid-1960s, and Taiwan and South Korea by the early 1970s, enjoying almost full employment. The laissez faire rent-seeking activities of the 1980s has placed this system in Japan under strain in the 1990s. In Taiwan and South Korean where "growth has indeed been relatively equitable, ironically it is the period since the start of the democratisation process that incomes have begun to diverge" (McKay 1993, 69). Nevertheless, between 1950 and 1990, Japan's real incomes per head rose from $US1,230 to $US23,970, a growth rate of 7.7 percent per year. Over the same period the US managed a growth rate per capita of just 1.9 percent per year (The Economist 1993, 4). Japan, along with the other East Asian states in the post-1945 period has experienced the fastest per capita wage increase in modern history.
2.0 Japan's Educational Development.
2.1 Restoration
By the time of the Restoration, shogunate schools (gogaku) were teaching medicine, sciences and military affairs; while Terakoya (temple schools) taught commoners practical education. Japan's literacy rate was higher than or equal to developing European nations (Rubinger 1986, 201). Training of men of talent (jinzai) was instituted in the Shijuku, private Dutch academies, whose advanced training and open admissions enabled them to become agents of change from a traditional vocational pattern of hereditary succession to a more modern functioning school - selecting and sorting students into occupational areas by ability and speacialized training 1 (Rubinger 1986, 195).
These were positioned in the larger and more strategically placed domains (Choshu, Tosa, Satsuma, Kaga, Saga) from which the samurai leadership of the Meiji Restoration came. From the viewpoint of economic development therefore, while education was patchwork "one of the most important effects of Togukawa education was that it produced a number of social leaders for the Meiji period, including politicians and entrepreneurs" (Arai 1990, 155).
On March 15, 1868, even before the Restoration battles had been completed, Iwakura Tomomi (1825-1883) appointed a committee of kokugawa scholars to draft a proposal for higher education. On moving the Emperor to Edo (Tokyo) on September 3, 1868, a unified institution, the University of Tokyo, was located at the seat of central government. The Confucian Daigaku honko school was closed on August 8, 1870 as the Meiji elite placed Western scholarship in uncontested control. On September 2, 1871, four days after the establishment of the prefectures, Dakokan Order no. 361 called for the establishment of a Ministry of Education (Mombusho) with the responsibility for planning and implementing a national system of education. An unsatisfactory taxation system resulted in the national education subsidy accounting for only 13 percent of primary education funding, the quality of education remaining poor and attendance rates only 30 percent of the male school age population, despite low tuition fees. This was because farmers could not afford the loss of child labour. The Meiji oligarchy diverted the majority of state educational resources to study missions, the most important being the Iwakur Mission (1871-1873) to continental Europe. By 1881 Japan had nearly 6000 students abroad. Drawing from the findings of the Iwakur Mission, in 1872 the Fundamental Code of Education established a national three-tiered education system based on the French model comprising compulsory primary education and voluntary secondary and tertiary education 2. In 1893 the new Minister of Education, Inoue Kowashi, a member of the Iwakur Mission, instituted the development of vocational education, modelled on Germany's, for the rapidly growing manufacturing sector. Through the Elementary School Decree of 1886 and the Imperial Rescript on Education (1890), the Meiji elite placed Kokutai ideology at the centre of Japanese education, "loyalty and filial piety.. (to be) the glory of the fundamental character of Our Empire, and.. the source of Our education" (Borthwick 1992, 132). The 1900 Revised Elementary School Decree confirmed compulsory education for four years with tuition free; in 1907 this was raised to six years, a directive that took thirty years to achieve but which saw the Japanese emerging as the most highly literate people in Asia. Unquestionably the most important organisational development in the history of Japanese education was the creation of a national system of schools by the end of the second decade of the Meiji period (Rubinger 1986, 195).
2.2. Japan's Post-War Education Reforms
The ideals of SCAP's education reforms were embodied in the Basic Law on Education Act of 1947 which stated:
education aims at helping (children) to grow up as members of a peaceful state and society who love truth and justice, uphold the value of the individual, believe in hard work, take responsibility for ones' actions, display an abundant spirit of independence (*censored*ui 1992, 210).
SCAP prescribed six years of primary education, three years of both junior and senior high school, and four years of college education. In 1955 approximately half of all high school students completed high school; by 1973, 90 percent did so and the proportion of high school graduates who entered colleges and universities rose from 5 percent to over 30 percent in the same period (*censored*ui 1988, 205). The changes undertaken by SCAP, however, have proven only structural. After "Japan's return to independence in 1952, most of the changes were modified to accord with Japanese ideas of education" (Arai 1990, 158). The Ministry of Education in 1954 made it illegal for a teacher to express political statements. In 1956 it abandoned the SCAP initiative of popular elections for local education board membership, replacing it with appointed state officials. In 1957 the uniform nationwide teacher evaluation law attacked the independence of the Japan Teachers Union whose 600,000 members made up one of the largest unions in Japan (*censored*ui 1988, 205). These measures were conducted in response to pressure from the Japan Federation of Employers' Association (Nihon keiesha dantai rengokai or Nikkeiren) and other peak business groups who wished to reinforce the Meiji objectives of providing industry with an abundance of technically skilled labour capable of undertaking production related activities.
3.0 Taiwan and South Korean Educational Systems
"For obvious political reasons, the Japanese colonial authority (in Taiwan and South Korea) under invested in education" (Amsden 1979, 347). Nevertheless, the Meiji administration provided Taiwan and South Korea with some of the highest literacy rates amongst the underdeveloped countries. By 1910 all children in Taiwan received elementary school education including history, science and technical skills. Meiji Japan's investment in Korean education was exceptionally high compared to Taiwan as it aimed to assimilate Koreans into Japanese society, albeit at a lower social standing. It was this Meiji educational policy which created the small Korean administrative elite of the post-1945 period. Continuing the Meiji educational tradition, the post-1945 education in Taiwan and South Korea has been "characterised as group - and authority centred and paternalistic in their methods of operations", turning the loyalty of the children to the nation-state ideology (Appleton 1976, 704). From 1954-1974 the percentage of the total population enrolled in secondary schools in Taiwan increased five-fold and in higher education institutions twelve-fold (The Economist 1990, 17). In 1990, while virtually all Taiwanese and South Korean children obtained elementary education, 45 percent of Taiwanese and 37 percent of Koreans obtained some form of higher tertiary or vocational educational qualifications in comparison to 60 percent in the United States and only 27 percent of Britons (The Economist 1990, 17). In Taiwan and South Korea, "maximizing individual preference was not the goal of the governments education policy" (Wade 1993, 434). These governments have actively gone against public demand for tertiary institutions: in 1963 the vocational-university ratio in Taiwan stood at 40:60, by 1986 it had undergone a dramatic reversal of 69:3130. The Ministry of Education incorporated industry into vocational education through tax incentives and employer contribution programs. As a consequence Taiwan, during the 1980s, with a population of 20 million saw junior colleges annually granting over 20,000 engineering diplomas and a further 10,000 bachelor-level engineering degree holders graduated annually, or twice that of the US on a per capita basis 3 (Young 1976, 724). The significance of the East Asian states' emphasis on technical skills can not be overestimated: "salaried engineers are the key figure in late industrialisation because they are the gatekeepers of foreign technology transfers" (Amsden 1989, 7).
4.0 Singapore's Educational System
4.1 Singapore's Colonial Labour System
Under colonial rule the administration of the colony was almost exclusively the domain of expatriate British or members of the Commonwealth. Consequently "there was no felt need to greatly enhance the educational competence of the population at large" (Sandhu & Wheatley 1989, 1072). Regarded as an appendage of Malaya prior World War Two (1939-1945), educational policy were more often than not geared to the needs of the larger political unit, with scant attention paid to the island's cultural heterogeneous urban populations needs. The colonial education system was authoritarian, imposed upon the communities with little or no consultation and chronically under-financed. It was funded primarily by an education charge on rateable property, supplemented by school fees and funds allocated from the general revenue of the colony. Even more prohibitive than the failure to finance the education system was the Colonial government's failure to implement a long term strategic plan as to the quantity and quality of education. The outcome was failure to provide half the school age population with any level of eduction and to divide those that did attend into four separate systems based on language, Chinese, Malaya, Tamil and English. Such a system that failed to provide for a universal experience in education could cause nothing other than social divisions in a far from homogeneous society. Higher educational facilities were never adequate for the country, both King the King Edward VII College of Medicine founded in 1905 and the Raffles College opened in 1928 had to serve the whole of British Malay 4. These two institutions merged in 1949, and as channels for the Civil Service continued to be largely restricted to British expatriates.
4.2 The PAP's Ideological Commitment to Education
During the colonial period, local industries desire for English speaking graduates as clerks and junior assistants saw the emergence in Singapore of a small Chinese administrative elite which was largely isolated form the remainder of the population. The PAP leadership were themselves a product of the British educational system, Lee having graduated with distinction from Cambridge, with only 14 percent of the relevant age cohorts were undergoing some form of tertiary education (Sandhu & Wheatley 1989, 1072). Never-the-less it was to be this small band of British educated elite who were to undertake a commitment to rapid educational expansion. As early as 1960, the government introduced a Five-Year plan in relation to education which emphasised the study of technical subjects. Education costs from 1959 to 1968 amounted to almost a third of the national budget with defence taking over in 1969 as the major item of expenditure as a consequence of the British decision to withdraw its military forces from Singapore (Gopinathan 1985, 205). The aim of this plan was, firstly, to provide equal education for all racial groups, Malay, Chinese, Tamil and English and, secondly, to emphasis the study of mathematics, science and technical subjects. Education was designed to provide social harmony and the populace with the technical skills with which Singapore was to achieve industrialisation. The high level of expenditure on education has continued, between the period 1980-1985, 57 new schools and seven junior colleges were established at a cost of $S300 million dollars. Education remains highly competitive with only 10 percent of students going on the tertiary education as compared to 40 percent in Japan and 27.5 percent in Germany (Gopinthan 1985, 205).
4.3 Primary and Secondary Level of Education
They have moved to create an industrial work force by providing universal education, firstly at the primary level and then at the secondary level 5. They were able to achieve this through birth control which created a demographic change that saw the number of school age children in proportion to population reach a slower rate growth or actual decline. Literacy rates (among people above 10 years of age) rose from 72 percent in 1970 to 90 percent in 1990, student enrolment ratios increased from 80 percent for primary and 43 percent for secondary in 1970 to an average of 93 percent for both groups in 1990 (Soon & Tan 1993, 2). This literacy rate has been undertaken in English which is seen to play a key role in the economic modernisation and development in Singapore as it is defined by the PAP to be the international business language. Better quality of education has also been delivered through an improved student-teacher ratio and quality of teacher qualifications. The "increase in education opportunities for females in Singapore amounts to a revolution" (Gopinthan 1985, 214). The PAP has achieved a rapid rise in the female literacy rate. In 1957 male literacy rates were 675 per 1000, form females it was 390. By 1985 females between the ages of 15-19 years was 878 (Goptinthan 1985, 214). The result of this has been the infusion into the Singapore economy of highly literate low-wage earners who make up a significant proportion of manufacturing labour. The success of the PAP primary and secondary reforms is not to say that Singapore's eduction system is without its critics. At age 8 students are tested for aptitude and then streamed into different levels which shall determine whether they go on to university studies in the future. As one Western diplomat states; "By age 8, if you're not streamed into the university track, your flushed out of the system" (Liu 1990, 64). This must be seen as part of the PAP's broad use of the educational system to legitimise its rule and the power of the state to undertake economic and social policies. Little autonomy is provided to educational administrators as primary and secondary principles remain under the tight central control of the government. Nor does this autonomy extend to tertiary institutions where administrators are appointed by the government, many being on secondment from the public service. Never-the-less the "public response to the system indicates that academic credentials are highly valued which is why an oppressive examination system is tolerated" (Gopinthan 1985, 207).
4.4 Post Secondary Training.
"The most dramatic change in educational restructuring at the post-primary level has been the extension of technical and commercial education within the schools system and in the provision of industrial training outside the school system" (Gopinthan 1985, 207). Rather that attempt to provide universal university education, Singapore has adapted from Germany a system of technical training which required private industry to provide its employees with the technical skills they require. During the Japanese of Singapore (1942-1945), the Japanese authorities placed a "greater emphasis on technical and vocational training as opposed to the more purely academic subject matter preferred by the British" (Sandhu & Wheatley 1989, 1072). While the British system was re-implemented in the immediate post-1945 period, the indigenous elite had been exposed to greater technical training than had previously been the case. Lee Kuan Yew annunciated the PAP commitment to technical training:
If we are to achieve our full human potential translated into sophisticated industrial goods we manufacture of the services we provide must (have) more student with good general groundings and greater trainable for specific jobs. While we cannot alter the innate qualities of our people, we shall make the most of qualities by teaching and training in subjects and skills relevant to today's needs and in anticipation of tomorrows development (Gopinthan 1985, 1072).
Since 1969 all males of secondary level education have received a degree of vocational education. Vocational eduction since the early 1980s has been opening up for females although remains largely the field of home economics rather than other technical fields. Three major vocation training institutions co-founded by Singapore and national governments; The German Singapore Institute specialising in mechanical engineering; the French Singapore Institute specialising in electronics; and the Japan Singapore Institute specialising in training electronic maintenance personnel. These have combined with joint government-industry training centres established by the EDB and have become a vital chain in the importation of technology as those students who excel are often sent to foreign institutions to gain valuable knowledge. Approximately 10,000 Singaporean students study in overseas educational institutions annually, plus another 500,000 Singaporean's travel overseas in business or tourism (Bellows 1990, 202).
5.0 East Asian Labour Policies
5.1. Meiji Japan's Labour Reforms
The Meiji oligarchy following "a precedent set by European, notably German, governments attempts to bring about peace and harmony in industrial relations by providing a modicum of legal and economic protection for employees" (*censored*ui 1992, 202). The Factory Law enacted in 1911 banned child employment under 12 years of age, night work for women and minors, and limited work days to 12 hours. By the early 1920s the Factory Law was revised and new laws enacted under the Home Ministry's new Bureau of Social Affairs to safeguard employee health and welfare. In the 1920s, a system of lifetime employment was formally instituted, including company training of new recruits, wage scales linked to seniority, company welfare programs and consultative bodies established to resolve industrial disputes. These new employment practices were "designed in part to retain the services of skilled workers in demand by competitors and in part to ward off pressure from militant and activist labour movements that emerged in the post-World War One years" (Duus 1988, 23). The Meiji state tolerated those labour organisations, such as the Friendship Society instituted in the 1910s and the Japanese Confederation of Labour (Nihon rodo sodomei) in the early 1920s, which showed a willingness to cooperate with management rather than advocate class differentiation. The social unrest resulting from the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake provided the state with the justification upon which to undertake a concerted attack upon prominent Marxists, unionists and Korean workers, enabling the introduction of the 1925 Peace Preservation Law banning all organisations which denounced Kokutai. The majority of workers, coming from an agrarian sector unaccustomed to labour conflict, accepted the Meiji state's industrial relations institutions.
5.2. Japan's Post-1945 Industrial Relation Policies
The SCAP memorandum of October 1945 committed the Allied Occupation to establishing freedom of association for union movements, particularly the militant mining, manufacturing and service sectors. In 1946 there were 1,260 industrial disputes, although these largely reflected the severity of economic hardship at the time rather than reflecting any ideological redress by the industrial work force. With no ideological commitment to labour freedom for association within the national elite, union activists were dependent upon SCAP support. This was withdrawn on July 22, 1946 with a SCAP directive instructing the Japanese government to deny public servants the right to collective bargaining or strike action, thus abandoning all pretence of union support in the wake of the public service union general strikes of February 1947. Consequently the General Council of Japanese Trade Unions (Nihon rodo kumiai sohyogikai: Sohyo) established in 1949 has concentrated not on worker remuneration but rather on political protests against the US-Japanese alliance. Combined with state structures, the post-1960s period has seen Japanese workers enjoy the quickest rise in per capita income in international history, leaving little room for union protest (*censored*ui 1988, 205).
5.3. Japan's Present Labour Policy
The lifetime employment and pay-by-age system has been the foundation of industrial stability, and while it only applies to approximately 25 percent of the work force, the policy sets an example that permeates the other sections of the economy. Most Anglo-American economic observers now claim that the salaryman system between male workers and private corporations is being undermined by the current Japanese economic difficulties. This analysis is based on, firstly, attempts by corporations to reduce their workforces, such as Nippon Steel's November 1993 decision to shed 20 percent of its employees, for the first time in the post-1945 era. Secondly, Japan's official unemployment rate of 2.6 percent as misleading as it excludes women and those unemployed for more than 300 days. Finally it is estimated that 1.5 million of Japan's 66.6. million workforce are unemployed within the company, performing no apparent task related to corporate productivity (McGregor 1993, 13).
This analysis ignores several key factors. Firstly, salaryman employment remains an important indicator of status within Japanese society with corporations who cut staff suffering public and state rebuke; secondly, most corporations are maintaining their workforce, fully aware that they shall be a valuable asset with Japan's growing shortage of labour. Even company cuts in biannual bonuses, which can be as much as a third of annual remuneration and are directly linked to the profitability of the enterprise, must be taken in context. In stark contrast with US and Australian workers, Japanese workers over the past ten years have enjoyed wage increases over inflation and even during this recession have largely maintained parity (Schlender, 1-9). Finally, the Japanese state is actively subsiding companies to keep on workers. As of October 1, 1993 the Labour Ministry designated 187 industries, from steel to computer software, as industries in need and which consist of 4.04 million workers who are paid by the state to remain at home several days a month (McGregor 1993, 13). While Anglo-American economists would condemn this as inefficient, Michael Naldrett of Kleinwort Benson in Tokyo dismisses this:
They are far more sensible about employment in Japan. In the West you have serious dislocation costs - people lose their jobs, homes and then go on welfare. But when the economy starts to recover, companies have to go out there and find quality workers.. pushing up wages.. inflation.. and interests rates. In the US, the United Kingdom and Australia, you subtract from the human capital rather than add to it, as they do here (Japan) (McGregor 1993, 13).
Wage increases in Japan have not been equitable: average women's monthly salaries were approximately 166,300 yen ($US2346) or 60 percent of the average male wage of Y276,000 (copper 1989, 7). Employee and social pressures upon women to quit work upon marriage and child birth remain great barriers despite Japanese women being protected by legislation against discrimination 6 (Copper 1989, 7).
6.0 Taiwanese and South Korean Labour Structures
6.1. Employment Structure
In Taiwan, management overheads have been kept in check; the ratio of white to blue collar workers in Taiwan actually declined in the period from 1960 to 1980 from 0.13 to 0.10 respectively and the management stratum remained limited (Lee & Chung 1992, 19). Taiwan under the KMT has not instituted lifetime employment: in 1981 only 16 percent of the labour force between the age of 35 and 50 continued at one employment for longer than 10 years, whereas in Japan 60 percent stayed on (Lee & Chung 1992, 19). Two important points should be noted however. Firstly, workers who have undertaken extensive technical training do enjoy employment stability in large state and private corporations. Secondly, "female workers played an important part in the economic development of Taiwan as the rapid growth of labour-intensive export industries induced the large-scale entry of women, mostly young and unskilled, into manufacturing" (Kuo-Shu & Linag 1986, 108). Compared to Japan and Taiwan, the "mode of incorporation of labor into the industrial structure was more brutal and repressive in South Korea" (Castell 1992, 40). By 1977, 2.2 percent of Korea's enterprises, those employing 500 workers or more, accounted for 44 percent of the labour force (Castell 1992, 38). This has provided for a militaristic approach to industrial relations, with workers entitled to no true representation at the management level. As late as 1980 the Labor Dispute Laws imposed greater restrictions than those under the tenure of President Park Chung Hee with the state Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) imposing severe industrial restrictions upon workers (Billett 1990, 309).
It "can be reasonably assumed that equity distribution plays an important role in dampening the momentum of labor movements aimed at redistribution" (Yu-Shan 1989, 388). In Taiwan throughout the 1970s real wages in the manufacturing sector rose relatively fast compared to labour productivity: the period 1982 to 1986 saw an increase of 10 percent, and since 1986 wages have risen 7.4 percent per annum (Yu-Shan 1989, 388). "Korean's real-wage growth rate may exceed that of any previous industrial revolution (with Japan a close second) and that of any contemporary one" (Amsden 1989, 10). From 1975 to 1978 wages increased 142 percent compared to consumer prices and labour productivity which increased 45 percent (Haggard 1990, 221). In contrast to the period 1988-1990 manufacturing wages increased at a rate of 21.6 percent per annum while labour productivity rose only 5.1 percent annually, the 15.5 percent rise in unit labour cost comparing unfavourably to 1 percent in Japan and 3 percent in Taiwan (McKay 1993, 72). Following the lifting of martial law in June 1987, on May 1 1988 Taiwan experienced its first major strike. Railway locomotive drivers decided to take a vacation as strike action requires a lengthy legal process. As with subsequent strikes, the locomotive drivers' strike did not involve collaboration between unions, with the railway union merely seeking to achieved economic gains for their members. Under democratic reforms, in October 1987 South Korean workers for the first time gained a minimum daily wage and the Federation of Democratic Labor Unions (FDLU), formed independently from the FKTU has seen a significant rise in union membership 7 (Billet 1990, 305). The brutal nature of government suppression in South Korea resulted in a wave of violent protest in the late 1980s. Government estimates indicate that strikes in 1989 cost the economy $US4 billion, the economy declining from a growth rate of 11 to 12 percent in the two previous years to 8.5 percent in 1989 8. Nevertheless Taiwan's unemployment rate was 1 percent in 1988. The last time it exceeded 2 percent was in 1964, while Korea's rate has been between 2 to 4 percent for all but one of the past 20 years. All indicators point to the fact that for "much of the past two decades Taiwan has been the world's most egalitarian society, as well as one of the half dozen fastest growing ones" (The Economist 1990, 17).
7.0 Labour Policy and Equity in Singapore
7.1 Singapore's Labour Policy
Singapore has been able to achieve "two outcomes - rapid growth and reduced inequality - are the defining characteristics of what has come to be known as the East Asian economic miracle" (Imhoff 1993, 27). The central significance of the state structure of industrial training in Singapore, and the remainder of East Asia, on economic development can not be underestimated. It has provided for the emergence of a system stable employment and close unions-enterprise relations which have ensured industrial stability. "The city state of Singapore (and Hong Kong) are special cases where labor flocked to manufacturing from ill-paid and unproductive commercial and service jobs" (Barrett & Chin 1987, 27). In 1966 Singapore had an unemployment rate of 9 percent with a 42.3 percent labour forces participation, by 1983, unemployment was down to 3 percent while labour force participation of 63.8 percent, coming mainly from a mass incorporation of women into the labour force (Castell 1992, 35). Workers remuneration in manufacturing grew at an annual nominal rate of 21.5 percent between 1967-1971 and 19.3 percent in the period 1971-1981 (Castells, Goh & Kwok 1990, 155). Never-the-less productivity increased four times wage increases. The per capita income Singapore has increased so quickly that it is the only economy in the developing world to nearly reach those of the industrial nations. The per capita income Singapore has increased so quickly that it is the only economy in the developing world to nearly reach those of the industrial nations. Between 1960 to 1990 per capita domestic GDP increased 4-fold from $S3,455 to $S13,150, compared to the 7 fold increase in per capita GDP from $S3,068 to $S21,000 (Soon & Tan 1993, 155).
Far from being mainly the product of cultural consensus as often described by Anglo-American scholars, the level of industrial stability in Singapore has been achieved via state industrial structures coercing the employees to accept conditions. In Singapore "labour discipline was imposed first by repression.. but also powerful elements of social integration, .. Paramount being the actual betterment of living conditions for workers" (Castell 1992, 35). The Singapore government is the largest employer, with 20 percent of the nations work-force, in the country the government can not have anything other than a major influence on labour markets. The PAP controls wages through the National Wage Council, in August 1959 the Minister for Labour, K.M. Byrne, introduced a bill which would give the Minister the final decision on appeal against a ruling by the Registrar of Trade Unions. In handing down the law Byrne stated;
The (PAP) government does not believe in the outward forms of democracy or trade freedom. It believes in achieving the essence of it (Sandhu & Wheatley 1989, 1072).
Nevertheless the Singapore state has pursued "a precedents set by European, notably German, governments and attempted to bring about peace and harmony in industrial relations by providing a modicum of legal and economic protection for employees" (*censored*ui 1992, 202). The Singapore Employment Act of 1968 did away with discrimatory policies, rationalised pay structures, reduced retrenchment benefits. The Employment Act and Industrial Relations (Amendment ACT) of the same year (1968) did away with much of the cause of friction between employers and employees by placing, promotion, methods of recruitment, transfers, assignments and retrenchment firmly in hands of management. This resulted in the transformation of trade unions from a confrontational to consensual approach. The 1968 general election of the PAP linked itself with the National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) by placing six of its central committee members up as parliamentary candidates. At the November 1969 NTUC seminar "Modernization of the Labour Movement", Lee Kuan Yew `convinced' members to reject class differences in favour of national prosperity. Promotion of tripartisan relations between government-employers-union came to be called the "PAP-NTUC symbiotic relationship".
In 1972 the National Wage Council was established, its aim to ensure that Singaporean wages remained internationally competitive in medium to high technology sectors. Official statistics from the National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) showed that workers bonuses in financial institutions amounted to 5.4 months salary (The Economist Intelligence Unit 1994, 18). Wages in Singapore are now reaching New Zealand levels and will be at Australian rates by the middle of this decade (1990s). For example a senior marketing manager would annually earn approximately $S50,000 ($A38,500), a business representative $S40-60,000 and a secretary $S20,000 (Bromby 1991, 27). On top of this is the employers contribution to the Central Provisional Fund (CPF) and the minimal 1.5 percent monthly bonus each year. During the 1980s the state doubled wages by forcing employees to increase their contribution to the CPF. In 1965 domestic savings accounted for 10 percent of GDP rising to 40 percent in 1985. Never-the-less with the post war "baby boomers" entering adulthood from the late 1960s onward, the labour force expanded 10-fold from 162,000 to 1,524,000 in 1990 (Soon & Tan 1993, 2). The "result of these policies has been a broad, technically inclined human capital base well suited to rapid economic development" (Imhoff 1993, 15). The provision of universal elementary and secondary eduction and the establishment of both technical and university education has further fostered equity.
8.0 Conclusion
The states of East Asia, like Germany before them, have conclusively shown that it is not only vital for the state to institute a standard universal system of education but, more importantly, that it produce a labour force technically capable of rapidly adapting to changing production methods. Japan's Meiji oligarchy had a clear commitment to the development of a national education system under Kokutai state ideology. In establishing universal primary and secondary education, the Meiji elite adapted continental European educational systems and avoided the burden of tertiary education by maintaining a benefit principle. By the end of their reign, (1912) Japan's modern educational system was in place. From Germany the Meiji elite adapted a system of vocational training that, while directed by the state, placed the burden of cost upon private industry. The Meiji instituted system of education and vocational training remains in place despite SCAP attempts at reform, and forms the backbone of Japan's employment structure. Instituted by Meiji colonial administrators in Taiwan and South Korea, the KMT and South Korean leaderships have also undertaken heavy educational investment. The "result of these policies has been a broad, technically inclined human capital base well suited to rapid economic development" (Imhoff 1993, 15). The East Asian national elite have also achieved relative industrial harmony in the post-1945 era not only through coercion by the state but also via the nature of the industrial structure adapted from continental Europe. The Neoclassical comparative advantage analysis which was centred on the East Asian states' low-wages and industrial suppression failed to take into account these industrial structures. Through their adaption of educational and training systems, state backed management and labour organisations, wages and remuneration systems and industrial welfare provisions, these states have provided their workers with greatly improved living standards. It is ironic that it has only been in the past half-decade, with the emergence of Taiwan and South Korea as international trading powers, that Anglo-American research has belatedly concluded that a nation's trade capacity, "is based almost entirely on differences in the availability of human skills.. (and) not on differences in the availability of capital" (Wade 1993, 433).
Notes
1 - In 1858 an established new centre for Western Studies, known as the Bansho Shirabesho, (1866) named Kaiseijo, became a leading centre of Western Studies and attracted many of the best students in the country.
2 - The 1872 plan was ambitious with the government seeking to establish 54,000 elementary schools of one for every 600 people.
3 - The figures do not include those Taiwanese students gaining degrees in overseas institutions.
4 - The former was not an autonomous branch of the colonial bereaucracy while the latter was a teacher-training college with minimal autonomy.
5 - As late as the mid-1980s South Korea was contributing as much as 80 percent of its education budget to elementary education compared to 50 percent in Argentina and Venezuela - The Australian (1994), 8th Oct.
6 - Kimie Iwata, director of the Ministry of Labour's women division, reflects the state's policy direction, "The biggest event for Japanese women (during the United Nations women's decade 1975-1985) was the ratification of international law to prohibit all kinds of discrimination against women".
7 - The minimum wage was set at 3,700 to 3,900 won depending on the type of manufacturing industry and is yet to be fully implemented by the majority of those affected. As a consequence, by the 31 December 1988, approximately 22 percent of the South Korean labour force was unionised compared to 15 percent in June 1987.
8 - Some 3600 strikes were recorded in the second half of 1987 alone. The Hyandai Heavy Industries stike lasted 109 days before being broken up by the police, costing the company 454.5 billion won.
References
Amsden Alice (1979), "Taiwan's Economic History: A Case of Etatisme and a Challenge to Dependency Theory", Modern China, 5, 3, July, 341-380.
Appleton, Sheldon (1976), "The Social and Political Impact of Education in Taiwan", Asian Survey, 16, 8, August, 704.
Arai, Kazuhiro (1990), "Japanese Education and Econonic Development", in Chung H. Lee & Ippei Yamazawa (eds), The Economic Development of Japan and Korea: A Parallel With Lessons, London, Praeger.
"Export-orientated Industrialising States in the Capitalist World System: Similarities and Differences" in Fredric C. Deyo (ed), The Political Economy of the New Asian Industrialism, Ithaca, Cornell University Press.
Bellows, Thomas J. (1990), "Singapore in 1989: Progress in a Search of Roots", Asian Survey, 30, 2, February, 2d.
Billet, Bret L. (1990), "South Korea At The Cross Roads: An Evolving Democracy or Authoritarianism Revisited?". Asian Survey, 30, 3, March, 309.
Borthwick, Mark (ed) (1990), "Meiji: Japan in the Age of Imperialism", Pacific Century: The Emergence of Modern Pacific Asia, Boulder, Westview.
Bromby, Robin (1991), "Focus on Singapore: The Lion City Still Offers a Lot to Business", The Australian, 14th, November, 27.
Castell, Michael (1992), "Four Asian Tigers with a Dragon Head: A Comparative Analysis of the State, Economy and Society in the Asian Pacific Rim" in Richard P. Appelbaum & Jeffrey Henderson (eds), States And Development in the Asian Pacific Rim, London, Sage Publications.
Castells, M., L. Goh & R.Y-W Kwok (1990), The Shek Kip Mei Syndrome: Economic Development and Public Housing in Hong Kong and Singapore, London, Pion.
Copper, John F. (1989), "Taiwan: A Nation In Transition", Current History, 88, 537, April, 7.
Duus, Peter (1988), "Introduction" in Peter Duus (ed), The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 6 The Twentieth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
The Economist (1990), "Taiwan and Korea: Two Paths to Prosperity", 14th, July, 17.
The Economist (1993), "Survey of the Japanese Economy: Turning Point" 6th, March, 4.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (1994), "Country Report: Singapore: 2nd Quarter 1994" London, The Economist.
*censored*ui, Haruhiro (1992), "The Japanese State and Economic Development: Profile of a Nationalist-Paternalist Capitalist State", in Richard P. Appelbaum, & Jeffrey Henderson (eds), States And Development in the Asian Pacific Rim, London, Sage Publications.
Gopinathan, S. (1985), "Education", in Joh. S.T. Quah, Chang Hee Chee & Seah Chee Meow (eds), Government And Politics of Singapore, Singapore, Oxford University Press.
List, Friedrich (1905), The National System of Political Economy, Sampson S Lloyd (tr), London, Longmans
Haggard, Stephan & Chung-In Moon (1990), "Institutions and Economic Policy: Theory and a Korean Case Study", World Politics. A Quarterly Journal of International Relations, 42, July, 221.
Imhoff, Alfred (ed) (1993), The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy, A World Bank Policy Research Report. Melbourne, Oxford University Press.
Kuo-Shu, Liang & Ching-Ing Hou Linag (1986), "The Industrial Policy of Taiwan", in Hiromichi Mutoh, Sueo Sekiguchi, Kotaro Suzumura & Ippei Yamazawa (eds), Industrial Policies For Pacific Economic Growth, Sydney, Alien and Unwin.
Lee, Keun & Chung H. Lee (1992), "Sustaining Economic Development in South Korea: Lessons from Japan", The Pacific Review, 5, 1, 19.
Liu, Melinda (1990), "Singapore: Kinder and Gentler?", The Bulletin, 1 1th, December, 64.
Matthews, Trevor & John Ravenhill (1994), "Strategic Trade Policy: The Northeast Asian Experience", in Andrew MacIntrye (ed) Business and Government in Industrialising Asia, St Leonards, Alien and Unwin.
McGregor, Richard (1993), "Japanese who are busy doing nothing", The Australian, 5th, November, 13.
McKay, John (1993), "Democracy in Asia: Democratisation and the Drive to Economic Maturity in South Korea", Asian Studies Review, July.
Ohkawa, Kazushi & Gustav Ranis (1985), "Introduction", in Kazushi Ohkawa, Gustav Ranis & Larry Meissner (eds), Japan and the Developing Countries: A Comparative Analysis, Oxford,Basil Blackwell.
Rubinger, Richard (1986), "Education: From One Room to One System", in Marius B. Jansen & Gilbert Rozman (eds), Japan in Transition: From Tokugawa TO Meffi, New Jersey, Princeton University Press.
Sandhu, Kernial Singh & Paul Wheatley (1989), "Challenges of Success-. a Kernial Singh Sandhu & Paul Wheatley (eds), Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore, ISEAS.
Schlender, B. R., "Japan's New Realism: Don't Count This Superpower Out", Time Australia, 1-9.
Soon, Teck Wong & C. Suan Tan (1993). The Lessons of East Asia: Singapore Public Policy and Economic Development, Washington, The World Bank.
Young, Frank J. (1976), "Problems of Manpower Development in Taiwan", Asian Survey, 16, 8, July, 724.
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Original Reference
Austin, I. (1998) "Rethinking the Social: East Asian Education, Labour and Equity". In A. Greenhill, G. Fletcher & E. de la Fuente Rethinking the Social, Graduate Studies Centre, Griffith University.
Citation information
Austin, I. (2003) "Rethinking the Social: East Asian Education, Labour and Equity". Archive, Journal of Society and Information, vol.1, no.1, http://josi.spaceless.com/vol1/no1/archives/austin
One of "the most striking things about South Korea and Taiwan, and even more so Japan, is the increase in the ratios of the skilled labour force over the past 40 years. This is measured not just in terms of level of education attained, but in terms of the content of the education" (Wade 1993, 433).
In pursuing an ideological commitment to industrialisation, the East Asian national elite have, sacrifice a measure of material property in order to gain culture, skill, and powers of united production; it must sacrifice some present advantage in order to insure to itself future ones (List 1905, 117). The Meiji Oligarchy committed Japan to technological acquisition under the Charter Oath (1868). Upon Restoration they quickly moved to institute a Western education system over traditional Confucian scholarship and adapted continental European state educational mechanisms by establishing a national education system. Initially limited by a lack of state revenue, by the first decade of the twentieth century Japan had established a compulsory national elementary and secondary education system, an industry-based vocational training system, and a tertiary system focused upon political and technical training. The Supreme Command of the Allied Powers (SCAP) in Japan did not signal an end to the Meiji system of education. In fact those initatives introduced by SCAP were repealed by the mid-1950s. The Meiji education system was instituted on a limited scale by the Meiji colonial administrators in both Taiwan (1895-1945) and Korea (1910-1945). It provided these states with the national administrative elite of the post-1945 period which has been maintained and adapted under the Kumomintang (KMT) in Taiwan and through the commitment of General Park Chung Hee (1961-1979) to industrialisation under the Meiji Kokutai ideology.
For most of the post-1945 period, the East Asian states' low-wage levels and industrial harmony was defined by Neoclassical economists as "an almost classic case of an economy following its comparative advantage and reaping the gains predicted by conventional economic theory" (Matthews 1994, 29-90). However, Meiji Japan's "abundance of cheap labour revealed in the lower level of real wages in Japan should not be viewed as an advantage in itself" as other nations also possessed abundant cheap labour (Ohkawa 1985, 4). Meiji Japan was to adapt from continental Europe, principally Germany, a vocational and technical emphasis within the education system. As Friedrich List (1905) perceived with respect to the link between education and training on the one level, and industry on the other, "there scarcely exists a manufacturing business which has not relations to physics, mechanics, business, chemistry, mathematics, and or to the arts of design" (List 1905, 162). Meiji Japan also adapted state-financed union organisations, employment stability in key industries, remuneration structures including performance based bonuses and welfare provisions. All these state industrial mechanisms have provided for industrial harmony and success which saw Japan by the mid-1960s, and Taiwan and South Korea by the early 1970s, enjoying almost full employment. The laissez faire rent-seeking activities of the 1980s has placed this system in Japan under strain in the 1990s. In Taiwan and South Korean where "growth has indeed been relatively equitable, ironically it is the period since the start of the democratisation process that incomes have begun to diverge" (McKay 1993, 69). Nevertheless, between 1950 and 1990, Japan's real incomes per head rose from $US1,230 to $US23,970, a growth rate of 7.7 percent per year. Over the same period the US managed a growth rate per capita of just 1.9 percent per year (The Economist 1993, 4). Japan, along with the other East Asian states in the post-1945 period has experienced the fastest per capita wage increase in modern history.
2.0 Japan's Educational Development.
2.1 Restoration
By the time of the Restoration, shogunate schools (gogaku) were teaching medicine, sciences and military affairs; while Terakoya (temple schools) taught commoners practical education. Japan's literacy rate was higher than or equal to developing European nations (Rubinger 1986, 201). Training of men of talent (jinzai) was instituted in the Shijuku, private Dutch academies, whose advanced training and open admissions enabled them to become agents of change from a traditional vocational pattern of hereditary succession to a more modern functioning school - selecting and sorting students into occupational areas by ability and speacialized training 1 (Rubinger 1986, 195).
These were positioned in the larger and more strategically placed domains (Choshu, Tosa, Satsuma, Kaga, Saga) from which the samurai leadership of the Meiji Restoration came. From the viewpoint of economic development therefore, while education was patchwork "one of the most important effects of Togukawa education was that it produced a number of social leaders for the Meiji period, including politicians and entrepreneurs" (Arai 1990, 155).
On March 15, 1868, even before the Restoration battles had been completed, Iwakura Tomomi (1825-1883) appointed a committee of kokugawa scholars to draft a proposal for higher education. On moving the Emperor to Edo (Tokyo) on September 3, 1868, a unified institution, the University of Tokyo, was located at the seat of central government. The Confucian Daigaku honko school was closed on August 8, 1870 as the Meiji elite placed Western scholarship in uncontested control. On September 2, 1871, four days after the establishment of the prefectures, Dakokan Order no. 361 called for the establishment of a Ministry of Education (Mombusho) with the responsibility for planning and implementing a national system of education. An unsatisfactory taxation system resulted in the national education subsidy accounting for only 13 percent of primary education funding, the quality of education remaining poor and attendance rates only 30 percent of the male school age population, despite low tuition fees. This was because farmers could not afford the loss of child labour. The Meiji oligarchy diverted the majority of state educational resources to study missions, the most important being the Iwakur Mission (1871-1873) to continental Europe. By 1881 Japan had nearly 6000 students abroad. Drawing from the findings of the Iwakur Mission, in 1872 the Fundamental Code of Education established a national three-tiered education system based on the French model comprising compulsory primary education and voluntary secondary and tertiary education 2. In 1893 the new Minister of Education, Inoue Kowashi, a member of the Iwakur Mission, instituted the development of vocational education, modelled on Germany's, for the rapidly growing manufacturing sector. Through the Elementary School Decree of 1886 and the Imperial Rescript on Education (1890), the Meiji elite placed Kokutai ideology at the centre of Japanese education, "loyalty and filial piety.. (to be) the glory of the fundamental character of Our Empire, and.. the source of Our education" (Borthwick 1992, 132). The 1900 Revised Elementary School Decree confirmed compulsory education for four years with tuition free; in 1907 this was raised to six years, a directive that took thirty years to achieve but which saw the Japanese emerging as the most highly literate people in Asia. Unquestionably the most important organisational development in the history of Japanese education was the creation of a national system of schools by the end of the second decade of the Meiji period (Rubinger 1986, 195).
2.2. Japan's Post-War Education Reforms
The ideals of SCAP's education reforms were embodied in the Basic Law on Education Act of 1947 which stated:
education aims at helping (children) to grow up as members of a peaceful state and society who love truth and justice, uphold the value of the individual, believe in hard work, take responsibility for ones' actions, display an abundant spirit of independence (*censored*ui 1992, 210).
SCAP prescribed six years of primary education, three years of both junior and senior high school, and four years of college education. In 1955 approximately half of all high school students completed high school; by 1973, 90 percent did so and the proportion of high school graduates who entered colleges and universities rose from 5 percent to over 30 percent in the same period (*censored*ui 1988, 205). The changes undertaken by SCAP, however, have proven only structural. After "Japan's return to independence in 1952, most of the changes were modified to accord with Japanese ideas of education" (Arai 1990, 158). The Ministry of Education in 1954 made it illegal for a teacher to express political statements. In 1956 it abandoned the SCAP initiative of popular elections for local education board membership, replacing it with appointed state officials. In 1957 the uniform nationwide teacher evaluation law attacked the independence of the Japan Teachers Union whose 600,000 members made up one of the largest unions in Japan (*censored*ui 1988, 205). These measures were conducted in response to pressure from the Japan Federation of Employers' Association (Nihon keiesha dantai rengokai or Nikkeiren) and other peak business groups who wished to reinforce the Meiji objectives of providing industry with an abundance of technically skilled labour capable of undertaking production related activities.
3.0 Taiwan and South Korean Educational Systems
"For obvious political reasons, the Japanese colonial authority (in Taiwan and South Korea) under invested in education" (Amsden 1979, 347). Nevertheless, the Meiji administration provided Taiwan and South Korea with some of the highest literacy rates amongst the underdeveloped countries. By 1910 all children in Taiwan received elementary school education including history, science and technical skills. Meiji Japan's investment in Korean education was exceptionally high compared to Taiwan as it aimed to assimilate Koreans into Japanese society, albeit at a lower social standing. It was this Meiji educational policy which created the small Korean administrative elite of the post-1945 period. Continuing the Meiji educational tradition, the post-1945 education in Taiwan and South Korea has been "characterised as group - and authority centred and paternalistic in their methods of operations", turning the loyalty of the children to the nation-state ideology (Appleton 1976, 704). From 1954-1974 the percentage of the total population enrolled in secondary schools in Taiwan increased five-fold and in higher education institutions twelve-fold (The Economist 1990, 17). In 1990, while virtually all Taiwanese and South Korean children obtained elementary education, 45 percent of Taiwanese and 37 percent of Koreans obtained some form of higher tertiary or vocational educational qualifications in comparison to 60 percent in the United States and only 27 percent of Britons (The Economist 1990, 17). In Taiwan and South Korea, "maximizing individual preference was not the goal of the governments education policy" (Wade 1993, 434). These governments have actively gone against public demand for tertiary institutions: in 1963 the vocational-university ratio in Taiwan stood at 40:60, by 1986 it had undergone a dramatic reversal of 69:3130. The Ministry of Education incorporated industry into vocational education through tax incentives and employer contribution programs. As a consequence Taiwan, during the 1980s, with a population of 20 million saw junior colleges annually granting over 20,000 engineering diplomas and a further 10,000 bachelor-level engineering degree holders graduated annually, or twice that of the US on a per capita basis 3 (Young 1976, 724). The significance of the East Asian states' emphasis on technical skills can not be overestimated: "salaried engineers are the key figure in late industrialisation because they are the gatekeepers of foreign technology transfers" (Amsden 1989, 7).
4.0 Singapore's Educational System
4.1 Singapore's Colonial Labour System
Under colonial rule the administration of the colony was almost exclusively the domain of expatriate British or members of the Commonwealth. Consequently "there was no felt need to greatly enhance the educational competence of the population at large" (Sandhu & Wheatley 1989, 1072). Regarded as an appendage of Malaya prior World War Two (1939-1945), educational policy were more often than not geared to the needs of the larger political unit, with scant attention paid to the island's cultural heterogeneous urban populations needs. The colonial education system was authoritarian, imposed upon the communities with little or no consultation and chronically under-financed. It was funded primarily by an education charge on rateable property, supplemented by school fees and funds allocated from the general revenue of the colony. Even more prohibitive than the failure to finance the education system was the Colonial government's failure to implement a long term strategic plan as to the quantity and quality of education. The outcome was failure to provide half the school age population with any level of eduction and to divide those that did attend into four separate systems based on language, Chinese, Malaya, Tamil and English. Such a system that failed to provide for a universal experience in education could cause nothing other than social divisions in a far from homogeneous society. Higher educational facilities were never adequate for the country, both King the King Edward VII College of Medicine founded in 1905 and the Raffles College opened in 1928 had to serve the whole of British Malay 4. These two institutions merged in 1949, and as channels for the Civil Service continued to be largely restricted to British expatriates.
4.2 The PAP's Ideological Commitment to Education
During the colonial period, local industries desire for English speaking graduates as clerks and junior assistants saw the emergence in Singapore of a small Chinese administrative elite which was largely isolated form the remainder of the population. The PAP leadership were themselves a product of the British educational system, Lee having graduated with distinction from Cambridge, with only 14 percent of the relevant age cohorts were undergoing some form of tertiary education (Sandhu & Wheatley 1989, 1072). Never-the-less it was to be this small band of British educated elite who were to undertake a commitment to rapid educational expansion. As early as 1960, the government introduced a Five-Year plan in relation to education which emphasised the study of technical subjects. Education costs from 1959 to 1968 amounted to almost a third of the national budget with defence taking over in 1969 as the major item of expenditure as a consequence of the British decision to withdraw its military forces from Singapore (Gopinathan 1985, 205). The aim of this plan was, firstly, to provide equal education for all racial groups, Malay, Chinese, Tamil and English and, secondly, to emphasis the study of mathematics, science and technical subjects. Education was designed to provide social harmony and the populace with the technical skills with which Singapore was to achieve industrialisation. The high level of expenditure on education has continued, between the period 1980-1985, 57 new schools and seven junior colleges were established at a cost of $S300 million dollars. Education remains highly competitive with only 10 percent of students going on the tertiary education as compared to 40 percent in Japan and 27.5 percent in Germany (Gopinthan 1985, 205).
4.3 Primary and Secondary Level of Education
They have moved to create an industrial work force by providing universal education, firstly at the primary level and then at the secondary level 5. They were able to achieve this through birth control which created a demographic change that saw the number of school age children in proportion to population reach a slower rate growth or actual decline. Literacy rates (among people above 10 years of age) rose from 72 percent in 1970 to 90 percent in 1990, student enrolment ratios increased from 80 percent for primary and 43 percent for secondary in 1970 to an average of 93 percent for both groups in 1990 (Soon & Tan 1993, 2). This literacy rate has been undertaken in English which is seen to play a key role in the economic modernisation and development in Singapore as it is defined by the PAP to be the international business language. Better quality of education has also been delivered through an improved student-teacher ratio and quality of teacher qualifications. The "increase in education opportunities for females in Singapore amounts to a revolution" (Gopinthan 1985, 214). The PAP has achieved a rapid rise in the female literacy rate. In 1957 male literacy rates were 675 per 1000, form females it was 390. By 1985 females between the ages of 15-19 years was 878 (Goptinthan 1985, 214). The result of this has been the infusion into the Singapore economy of highly literate low-wage earners who make up a significant proportion of manufacturing labour. The success of the PAP primary and secondary reforms is not to say that Singapore's eduction system is without its critics. At age 8 students are tested for aptitude and then streamed into different levels which shall determine whether they go on to university studies in the future. As one Western diplomat states; "By age 8, if you're not streamed into the university track, your flushed out of the system" (Liu 1990, 64). This must be seen as part of the PAP's broad use of the educational system to legitimise its rule and the power of the state to undertake economic and social policies. Little autonomy is provided to educational administrators as primary and secondary principles remain under the tight central control of the government. Nor does this autonomy extend to tertiary institutions where administrators are appointed by the government, many being on secondment from the public service. Never-the-less the "public response to the system indicates that academic credentials are highly valued which is why an oppressive examination system is tolerated" (Gopinthan 1985, 207).
4.4 Post Secondary Training.
"The most dramatic change in educational restructuring at the post-primary level has been the extension of technical and commercial education within the schools system and in the provision of industrial training outside the school system" (Gopinthan 1985, 207). Rather that attempt to provide universal university education, Singapore has adapted from Germany a system of technical training which required private industry to provide its employees with the technical skills they require. During the Japanese of Singapore (1942-1945), the Japanese authorities placed a "greater emphasis on technical and vocational training as opposed to the more purely academic subject matter preferred by the British" (Sandhu & Wheatley 1989, 1072). While the British system was re-implemented in the immediate post-1945 period, the indigenous elite had been exposed to greater technical training than had previously been the case. Lee Kuan Yew annunciated the PAP commitment to technical training:
If we are to achieve our full human potential translated into sophisticated industrial goods we manufacture of the services we provide must (have) more student with good general groundings and greater trainable for specific jobs. While we cannot alter the innate qualities of our people, we shall make the most of qualities by teaching and training in subjects and skills relevant to today's needs and in anticipation of tomorrows development (Gopinthan 1985, 1072).
Since 1969 all males of secondary level education have received a degree of vocational education. Vocational eduction since the early 1980s has been opening up for females although remains largely the field of home economics rather than other technical fields. Three major vocation training institutions co-founded by Singapore and national governments; The German Singapore Institute specialising in mechanical engineering; the French Singapore Institute specialising in electronics; and the Japan Singapore Institute specialising in training electronic maintenance personnel. These have combined with joint government-industry training centres established by the EDB and have become a vital chain in the importation of technology as those students who excel are often sent to foreign institutions to gain valuable knowledge. Approximately 10,000 Singaporean students study in overseas educational institutions annually, plus another 500,000 Singaporean's travel overseas in business or tourism (Bellows 1990, 202).
5.0 East Asian Labour Policies
5.1. Meiji Japan's Labour Reforms
The Meiji oligarchy following "a precedent set by European, notably German, governments attempts to bring about peace and harmony in industrial relations by providing a modicum of legal and economic protection for employees" (*censored*ui 1992, 202). The Factory Law enacted in 1911 banned child employment under 12 years of age, night work for women and minors, and limited work days to 12 hours. By the early 1920s the Factory Law was revised and new laws enacted under the Home Ministry's new Bureau of Social Affairs to safeguard employee health and welfare. In the 1920s, a system of lifetime employment was formally instituted, including company training of new recruits, wage scales linked to seniority, company welfare programs and consultative bodies established to resolve industrial disputes. These new employment practices were "designed in part to retain the services of skilled workers in demand by competitors and in part to ward off pressure from militant and activist labour movements that emerged in the post-World War One years" (Duus 1988, 23). The Meiji state tolerated those labour organisations, such as the Friendship Society instituted in the 1910s and the Japanese Confederation of Labour (Nihon rodo sodomei) in the early 1920s, which showed a willingness to cooperate with management rather than advocate class differentiation. The social unrest resulting from the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake provided the state with the justification upon which to undertake a concerted attack upon prominent Marxists, unionists and Korean workers, enabling the introduction of the 1925 Peace Preservation Law banning all organisations which denounced Kokutai. The majority of workers, coming from an agrarian sector unaccustomed to labour conflict, accepted the Meiji state's industrial relations institutions.
5.2. Japan's Post-1945 Industrial Relation Policies
The SCAP memorandum of October 1945 committed the Allied Occupation to establishing freedom of association for union movements, particularly the militant mining, manufacturing and service sectors. In 1946 there were 1,260 industrial disputes, although these largely reflected the severity of economic hardship at the time rather than reflecting any ideological redress by the industrial work force. With no ideological commitment to labour freedom for association within the national elite, union activists were dependent upon SCAP support. This was withdrawn on July 22, 1946 with a SCAP directive instructing the Japanese government to deny public servants the right to collective bargaining or strike action, thus abandoning all pretence of union support in the wake of the public service union general strikes of February 1947. Consequently the General Council of Japanese Trade Unions (Nihon rodo kumiai sohyogikai: Sohyo) established in 1949 has concentrated not on worker remuneration but rather on political protests against the US-Japanese alliance. Combined with state structures, the post-1960s period has seen Japanese workers enjoy the quickest rise in per capita income in international history, leaving little room for union protest (*censored*ui 1988, 205).
5.3. Japan's Present Labour Policy
The lifetime employment and pay-by-age system has been the foundation of industrial stability, and while it only applies to approximately 25 percent of the work force, the policy sets an example that permeates the other sections of the economy. Most Anglo-American economic observers now claim that the salaryman system between male workers and private corporations is being undermined by the current Japanese economic difficulties. This analysis is based on, firstly, attempts by corporations to reduce their workforces, such as Nippon Steel's November 1993 decision to shed 20 percent of its employees, for the first time in the post-1945 era. Secondly, Japan's official unemployment rate of 2.6 percent as misleading as it excludes women and those unemployed for more than 300 days. Finally it is estimated that 1.5 million of Japan's 66.6. million workforce are unemployed within the company, performing no apparent task related to corporate productivity (McGregor 1993, 13).
This analysis ignores several key factors. Firstly, salaryman employment remains an important indicator of status within Japanese society with corporations who cut staff suffering public and state rebuke; secondly, most corporations are maintaining their workforce, fully aware that they shall be a valuable asset with Japan's growing shortage of labour. Even company cuts in biannual bonuses, which can be as much as a third of annual remuneration and are directly linked to the profitability of the enterprise, must be taken in context. In stark contrast with US and Australian workers, Japanese workers over the past ten years have enjoyed wage increases over inflation and even during this recession have largely maintained parity (Schlender, 1-9). Finally, the Japanese state is actively subsiding companies to keep on workers. As of October 1, 1993 the Labour Ministry designated 187 industries, from steel to computer software, as industries in need and which consist of 4.04 million workers who are paid by the state to remain at home several days a month (McGregor 1993, 13). While Anglo-American economists would condemn this as inefficient, Michael Naldrett of Kleinwort Benson in Tokyo dismisses this:
They are far more sensible about employment in Japan. In the West you have serious dislocation costs - people lose their jobs, homes and then go on welfare. But when the economy starts to recover, companies have to go out there and find quality workers.. pushing up wages.. inflation.. and interests rates. In the US, the United Kingdom and Australia, you subtract from the human capital rather than add to it, as they do here (Japan) (McGregor 1993, 13).
Wage increases in Japan have not been equitable: average women's monthly salaries were approximately 166,300 yen ($US2346) or 60 percent of the average male wage of Y276,000 (copper 1989, 7). Employee and social pressures upon women to quit work upon marriage and child birth remain great barriers despite Japanese women being protected by legislation against discrimination 6 (Copper 1989, 7).
6.0 Taiwanese and South Korean Labour Structures
6.1. Employment Structure
In Taiwan, management overheads have been kept in check; the ratio of white to blue collar workers in Taiwan actually declined in the period from 1960 to 1980 from 0.13 to 0.10 respectively and the management stratum remained limited (Lee & Chung 1992, 19). Taiwan under the KMT has not instituted lifetime employment: in 1981 only 16 percent of the labour force between the age of 35 and 50 continued at one employment for longer than 10 years, whereas in Japan 60 percent stayed on (Lee & Chung 1992, 19). Two important points should be noted however. Firstly, workers who have undertaken extensive technical training do enjoy employment stability in large state and private corporations. Secondly, "female workers played an important part in the economic development of Taiwan as the rapid growth of labour-intensive export industries induced the large-scale entry of women, mostly young and unskilled, into manufacturing" (Kuo-Shu & Linag 1986, 108). Compared to Japan and Taiwan, the "mode of incorporation of labor into the industrial structure was more brutal and repressive in South Korea" (Castell 1992, 40). By 1977, 2.2 percent of Korea's enterprises, those employing 500 workers or more, accounted for 44 percent of the labour force (Castell 1992, 38). This has provided for a militaristic approach to industrial relations, with workers entitled to no true representation at the management level. As late as 1980 the Labor Dispute Laws imposed greater restrictions than those under the tenure of President Park Chung Hee with the state Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) imposing severe industrial restrictions upon workers (Billett 1990, 309).
It "can be reasonably assumed that equity distribution plays an important role in dampening the momentum of labor movements aimed at redistribution" (Yu-Shan 1989, 388). In Taiwan throughout the 1970s real wages in the manufacturing sector rose relatively fast compared to labour productivity: the period 1982 to 1986 saw an increase of 10 percent, and since 1986 wages have risen 7.4 percent per annum (Yu-Shan 1989, 388). "Korean's real-wage growth rate may exceed that of any previous industrial revolution (with Japan a close second) and that of any contemporary one" (Amsden 1989, 10). From 1975 to 1978 wages increased 142 percent compared to consumer prices and labour productivity which increased 45 percent (Haggard 1990, 221). In contrast to the period 1988-1990 manufacturing wages increased at a rate of 21.6 percent per annum while labour productivity rose only 5.1 percent annually, the 15.5 percent rise in unit labour cost comparing unfavourably to 1 percent in Japan and 3 percent in Taiwan (McKay 1993, 72). Following the lifting of martial law in June 1987, on May 1 1988 Taiwan experienced its first major strike. Railway locomotive drivers decided to take a vacation as strike action requires a lengthy legal process. As with subsequent strikes, the locomotive drivers' strike did not involve collaboration between unions, with the railway union merely seeking to achieved economic gains for their members. Under democratic reforms, in October 1987 South Korean workers for the first time gained a minimum daily wage and the Federation of Democratic Labor Unions (FDLU), formed independently from the FKTU has seen a significant rise in union membership 7 (Billet 1990, 305). The brutal nature of government suppression in South Korea resulted in a wave of violent protest in the late 1980s. Government estimates indicate that strikes in 1989 cost the economy $US4 billion, the economy declining from a growth rate of 11 to 12 percent in the two previous years to 8.5 percent in 1989 8. Nevertheless Taiwan's unemployment rate was 1 percent in 1988. The last time it exceeded 2 percent was in 1964, while Korea's rate has been between 2 to 4 percent for all but one of the past 20 years. All indicators point to the fact that for "much of the past two decades Taiwan has been the world's most egalitarian society, as well as one of the half dozen fastest growing ones" (The Economist 1990, 17).
7.0 Labour Policy and Equity in Singapore
7.1 Singapore's Labour Policy
Singapore has been able to achieve "two outcomes - rapid growth and reduced inequality - are the defining characteristics of what has come to be known as the East Asian economic miracle" (Imhoff 1993, 27). The central significance of the state structure of industrial training in Singapore, and the remainder of East Asia, on economic development can not be underestimated. It has provided for the emergence of a system stable employment and close unions-enterprise relations which have ensured industrial stability. "The city state of Singapore (and Hong Kong) are special cases where labor flocked to manufacturing from ill-paid and unproductive commercial and service jobs" (Barrett & Chin 1987, 27). In 1966 Singapore had an unemployment rate of 9 percent with a 42.3 percent labour forces participation, by 1983, unemployment was down to 3 percent while labour force participation of 63.8 percent, coming mainly from a mass incorporation of women into the labour force (Castell 1992, 35). Workers remuneration in manufacturing grew at an annual nominal rate of 21.5 percent between 1967-1971 and 19.3 percent in the period 1971-1981 (Castells, Goh & Kwok 1990, 155). Never-the-less productivity increased four times wage increases. The per capita income Singapore has increased so quickly that it is the only economy in the developing world to nearly reach those of the industrial nations. The per capita income Singapore has increased so quickly that it is the only economy in the developing world to nearly reach those of the industrial nations. Between 1960 to 1990 per capita domestic GDP increased 4-fold from $S3,455 to $S13,150, compared to the 7 fold increase in per capita GDP from $S3,068 to $S21,000 (Soon & Tan 1993, 155).
Far from being mainly the product of cultural consensus as often described by Anglo-American scholars, the level of industrial stability in Singapore has been achieved via state industrial structures coercing the employees to accept conditions. In Singapore "labour discipline was imposed first by repression.. but also powerful elements of social integration, .. Paramount being the actual betterment of living conditions for workers" (Castell 1992, 35). The Singapore government is the largest employer, with 20 percent of the nations work-force, in the country the government can not have anything other than a major influence on labour markets. The PAP controls wages through the National Wage Council, in August 1959 the Minister for Labour, K.M. Byrne, introduced a bill which would give the Minister the final decision on appeal against a ruling by the Registrar of Trade Unions. In handing down the law Byrne stated;
The (PAP) government does not believe in the outward forms of democracy or trade freedom. It believes in achieving the essence of it (Sandhu & Wheatley 1989, 1072).
Nevertheless the Singapore state has pursued "a precedents set by European, notably German, governments and attempted to bring about peace and harmony in industrial relations by providing a modicum of legal and economic protection for employees" (*censored*ui 1992, 202). The Singapore Employment Act of 1968 did away with discrimatory policies, rationalised pay structures, reduced retrenchment benefits. The Employment Act and Industrial Relations (Amendment ACT) of the same year (1968) did away with much of the cause of friction between employers and employees by placing, promotion, methods of recruitment, transfers, assignments and retrenchment firmly in hands of management. This resulted in the transformation of trade unions from a confrontational to consensual approach. The 1968 general election of the PAP linked itself with the National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) by placing six of its central committee members up as parliamentary candidates. At the November 1969 NTUC seminar "Modernization of the Labour Movement", Lee Kuan Yew `convinced' members to reject class differences in favour of national prosperity. Promotion of tripartisan relations between government-employers-union came to be called the "PAP-NTUC symbiotic relationship".
In 1972 the National Wage Council was established, its aim to ensure that Singaporean wages remained internationally competitive in medium to high technology sectors. Official statistics from the National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) showed that workers bonuses in financial institutions amounted to 5.4 months salary (The Economist Intelligence Unit 1994, 18). Wages in Singapore are now reaching New Zealand levels and will be at Australian rates by the middle of this decade (1990s). For example a senior marketing manager would annually earn approximately $S50,000 ($A38,500), a business representative $S40-60,000 and a secretary $S20,000 (Bromby 1991, 27). On top of this is the employers contribution to the Central Provisional Fund (CPF) and the minimal 1.5 percent monthly bonus each year. During the 1980s the state doubled wages by forcing employees to increase their contribution to the CPF. In 1965 domestic savings accounted for 10 percent of GDP rising to 40 percent in 1985. Never-the-less with the post war "baby boomers" entering adulthood from the late 1960s onward, the labour force expanded 10-fold from 162,000 to 1,524,000 in 1990 (Soon & Tan 1993, 2). The "result of these policies has been a broad, technically inclined human capital base well suited to rapid economic development" (Imhoff 1993, 15). The provision of universal elementary and secondary eduction and the establishment of both technical and university education has further fostered equity.
8.0 Conclusion
The states of East Asia, like Germany before them, have conclusively shown that it is not only vital for the state to institute a standard universal system of education but, more importantly, that it produce a labour force technically capable of rapidly adapting to changing production methods. Japan's Meiji oligarchy had a clear commitment to the development of a national education system under Kokutai state ideology. In establishing universal primary and secondary education, the Meiji elite adapted continental European educational systems and avoided the burden of tertiary education by maintaining a benefit principle. By the end of their reign, (1912) Japan's modern educational system was in place. From Germany the Meiji elite adapted a system of vocational training that, while directed by the state, placed the burden of cost upon private industry. The Meiji instituted system of education and vocational training remains in place despite SCAP attempts at reform, and forms the backbone of Japan's employment structure. Instituted by Meiji colonial administrators in Taiwan and South Korea, the KMT and South Korean leaderships have also undertaken heavy educational investment. The "result of these policies has been a broad, technically inclined human capital base well suited to rapid economic development" (Imhoff 1993, 15). The East Asian national elite have also achieved relative industrial harmony in the post-1945 era not only through coercion by the state but also via the nature of the industrial structure adapted from continental Europe. The Neoclassical comparative advantage analysis which was centred on the East Asian states' low-wages and industrial suppression failed to take into account these industrial structures. Through their adaption of educational and training systems, state backed management and labour organisations, wages and remuneration systems and industrial welfare provisions, these states have provided their workers with greatly improved living standards. It is ironic that it has only been in the past half-decade, with the emergence of Taiwan and South Korea as international trading powers, that Anglo-American research has belatedly concluded that a nation's trade capacity, "is based almost entirely on differences in the availability of human skills.. (and) not on differences in the availability of capital" (Wade 1993, 433).
Notes
1 - In 1858 an established new centre for Western Studies, known as the Bansho Shirabesho, (1866) named Kaiseijo, became a leading centre of Western Studies and attracted many of the best students in the country.
2 - The 1872 plan was ambitious with the government seeking to establish 54,000 elementary schools of one for every 600 people.
3 - The figures do not include those Taiwanese students gaining degrees in overseas institutions.
4 - The former was not an autonomous branch of the colonial bereaucracy while the latter was a teacher-training college with minimal autonomy.
5 - As late as the mid-1980s South Korea was contributing as much as 80 percent of its education budget to elementary education compared to 50 percent in Argentina and Venezuela - The Australian (1994), 8th Oct.
6 - Kimie Iwata, director of the Ministry of Labour's women division, reflects the state's policy direction, "The biggest event for Japanese women (during the United Nations women's decade 1975-1985) was the ratification of international law to prohibit all kinds of discrimination against women".
7 - The minimum wage was set at 3,700 to 3,900 won depending on the type of manufacturing industry and is yet to be fully implemented by the majority of those affected. As a consequence, by the 31 December 1988, approximately 22 percent of the South Korean labour force was unionised compared to 15 percent in June 1987.
8 - Some 3600 strikes were recorded in the second half of 1987 alone. The Hyandai Heavy Industries stike lasted 109 days before being broken up by the police, costing the company 454.5 billion won.
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Original Reference
Austin, I. (1998) "Rethinking the Social: East Asian Education, Labour and Equity". In A. Greenhill, G. Fletcher & E. de la Fuente Rethinking the Social, Graduate Studies Centre, Griffith University.
Citation information
Austin, I. (2003) "Rethinking the Social: East Asian Education, Labour and Equity". Archive, Journal of Society and Information, vol.1, no.1, http://josi.spaceless.com/vol1/no1/archives/austin
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