Educational System of Japan

Japan's educational system is the same as that of the US and China. It has altogether nine years of compulsory education including six years of primary school education and three years of secondary school education. What follows are three years of senior high school education, two years of short-term university education or four years of normal university education. If taken further there are two years of master education and three years of doctorate education. The higher education institutions are divided into three categories, i.e. state, public and private. The term of a university and a technological academy starts from April and ends in March the following year. Each academic year consists of two semesters. Each academic year has a summer holiday, a winter holiday and a spring holiday.

Anybody who plans to receive a higher education in Japan shall normally take a Japanese course in an educational institution to improve their Japanese language and satisfy the admission requirements. Such Japanese educational institutions generally are divided into Japanese language colleges and the Japanese language section (called Japanese language minor course) in the private universities/institutes. Japanese language colleges feature a schooling length of half a year to two years, and overseas students who enroll into Japanese language colleges normally gain a pre-college student visa. The Japanese language minor courses in private universities/institutes are set for overseas students who are going to further enroll into these universities/institutes after complete their Japanese language course. The length of minor courses usually is one to two years. The students will gain a college student visa if they enroll in Japanese language minor course. Upon completion of the language courses, students may either be recommended for directly enter into the private universities or apply for other universities. There are 38 private universities of minors course for overseas students and there are about 300 Japanese language colleges recognized by "Association for the Promotion of Japanese Language Education". Overseas students who complete the Japanese language courses and passed the universities/institutes entry test will be qualified to study further in Japan.