Morris, Paul, and Sweeting, Anthony. (1995) Education and Development in East Asia. Reviewed by Victor Kobayashi

Morris, Paul, and Sweeting, Anthony. (1995) Education and Development in East Asia. Reference Books in International Education, Vol. 31; Garland Reference Library of Social Science, Vol. 942. N. Y. & London: Garland Publishing, Inc 293 + vi pp. ISBN 0-8153-15988-8 Reviewed by Victor Kobayashi University of Hawai'i May 20, 1998 This volume attempts to distill knowledge about education in relationship to development by examining eight countries (or country-like entities) in the East Asian region: Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Macau, and the People's Republic of China. Each is covered by a different author, in the order listed above, with Japan initiating the list, since it was the first in the region to "develop." Japan is followed by the others, in sequence, with China being the last to be discussed . These countries were selected because their economies grew more than twice as fast as the rest of the East Asian region, and thus they provide us with an opportunity to study the role of formal education in economic development. The countries selected also have improved remarkably in human welfare, including the distribution of income. Morris notes that Britain took 58 years from 1780 to double its real per capita income; the US took 47 years from 1839, while Japan took 34 years from 1900, and South Korea in 11 years from 1966 (p.4). The authors recognize that the two "heavyweights" in political influence of the area are Japan--historically much earlier than the rest to achieve a high degree of development-- and People's Republic of China, a giant poised to go into economic take-off. Wing On Lee writes the chapter on Japan, while Yat Ming Leung covers the case of the People's Republic of China. Both must deal with a mass of secondary sources, since much has been written on the two, not only from the point of view of education, but also from such disciplines as economics, business, history, and sociology. Their selection must inevitably miss some important work, but the omissions are understandable, given the nature of a volume that attempts to cover so much territory. In between are chapters on the industrial development newcomers--the "little dragons" or "tigers" of East Asia: Hong Kong (by Anthony Sweeting), Singapore (by Saravanan Gopinathan), Taiwan (by Yi Rong Young), South Korea (by Chon Sun Ihm), and Malaysia (by Hena Mukherjee and Jasbir Sarjit Singh). Even without the complexity of dealing with so much background work of scholars in Japanese and Chinese studies, their effort is formidable and they have admirably risen to the challenge. The result is a useful first reference work for students and new researchers who embark into the complex area of education and development. Mark Bray writes on the often ignored Macau, a Portuguese port colony that seems peripheral, with eyes drawn more to the spectacle of its bustling neighbor, urban Hong Kong, with its densely concentrated tall buildings, and until just recently a colony of Britain. Macau was long a sleepy, neglected, backwaters area next to Hong Kong, but in recent times, Macau has had a high degree of growth; for example, as Paul Morris points out, in 1993, its GDP was equal to that of New Zealand, and it surpassed that of Taiwan. Although Macau has had a long history of education, it has not been noted for its educational system, which cannot be considered a major player in its recent economic growth. But Bray notes that Macau's successful entrepreneurs are migrants, who already had a relatively strong background in formal schooling, and thus education has played an important part. At the same time the Macau government has recently undertaken to improve and expand its educational system, since leaders believe that such effort is needed if Macau is to be further competitive in the region. Bray's comments on the role of migrant students in the case of Macau's recent development raises questions about the role of Japan in the economic growth of the region. Japan was the earliest in Asia to develop remarkably but only its negative role, as an imperialistic power before and during World War II is mentioned in the essay by Chon Sun Ihm. Both Korea and Taiwan were former colonies of Japan, and all of the countries studied were also harshly affected by Japan during its militaristic encroachment into the region. What needs to be examined more carefully, however, is the role of Japan as a model of economic success in the eyes of the rest of Asia. Asian students have studied in Japan due to its economic success both before the war, and in recent times. Paula Harrell (1992) found that there were thirteen Chinese students in Japan in 1896, but their numbers swelled so that by 1906, a year after the Russo-Japanese War, 8,000 to 9,000 Chinese students, perhaps many more, were studying in Tokyo. Japan was close, and the expenses there were much less than in Europe or America. The students, who had been used to a Chinese education geared to making them "cultured." discovered how backward their schools had been, and they learned in Japan that modern formal education had an instrumental, pragmatic aspect: it was a means for developing a strong nation, while promising a better livelihood for those who advanced in the system. We do not yet have a full and clear picture of how Chinese and other Asian students who have studied in Japan may have contributed to development in their home countries, but the role of overseas education needs to factored into the education and development equation. Japan itself, of course, put much effort during the Meiji Period and after World War II to learn from the success of Western Europe and the U.S. In all seven countries, leaders have viewed education as important in achieving economic and social development. But the authors wisely indicate that the precise relationship between education and economic development remains a mystery, and the relationship requires further research. For one thing, as a nation grows economically, the industry of education also expands, since more and more of the population (its "market") demands increasing amounts of schooling. To some extant then, schooling is a "consumer industry" and its role as an "engine" for economic growth in the sense of creating better workers, citizens, who contribute to the well-being of a society, becomes more difficult to delineate. Japan, like the U.S., has also become major consumers of products that help fuel development in each other, as well as in other countries, including those examined in this book. Six of the seven countries are greatly influenced historically by Chinese culture so it is tempting to attribute development to the shared Confucian backgrounds of its peoples as some writers have suggested, but the authors do not succumb to simplistic explanations for development. The authors have combed the literature of education and development quite well, and this volume is a testimony to their admirable efforts to put into a compact and well-written form education and development of seven East Asian economies. The book is valuable to students interested in getting a foothold in the study of the relationship between education and development. The authors have not noticed the fascinating work of Randall Collins (1986), who has studied in comparative terms the origins of "self-transforming growth" of contemporary capitalism, which is entrepreneurial, continually innovating in seeking and/or creating new markets, as old markets lose their profitability. This dynamic so commonplace today whereby markets continually encounter new products whose consumption induces more growth and entrepreneurial efforts, according to Collins, may be rooted in the practices of world religions, as they spread throughout the globe. Collins has elaborated and expanded upon Max Weber's classic work on the connection between Christianity and the growth of capitalism, and Robert Bellah's work on Tokugawa religion (1957) and the development of Japan-- a work also influenced by Weber. Collins in particular has examined the case of Buphism in feudal Japan, whereby "monastic capitalism" spread to the masses along with the movement to popularize Buphism during the Kamakura period (1997). The transmission and spread of ideas also in the largest sense is part of what we mean by "education." The recent economic set-backs due to the crisis in the economic infra-structures of some of the countries, especially Korea and Japan, perhaps offers an opportunity to compare how countries such as Taiwan were not as vulnerable to similar crises (although they are affected by what happens elsewhere, especially in Japan). This recent crisis also points out the danger of overemphasizing formal education as a key factor in economic development, since countries with a well-developed system of formal education are vulnerable to a faulty fiscal infrastructure. Another consideration that aps to the enigma of education and development is the introduction of environmental concerns into the notion of "development." To a large degree the environmental crisis is a product of "development," and the costly efforts to reclaim the viability of the world environmental system, not to mention the need to slow down the deterioration, must now be included in the economics of "development." Increasingly scholars of economic growth, especially those dealing with the globalization of economies, are inserting the environmental factor into their thinking. Problems like enhanced global warming and the depletion of the ozone layer, for example, move the study of development from a country by country approach into a global arena, since a country like U.S., with its huge consumption of fossil fuels and beef (cattle are a major contributor to the increase of methane in the atmosphere) can be the major contributor to the enhanced "greenhouse effect" that indiscriminately affects developed as well as non-developed countries. Education is an "investment" in the future, and if it is part of "development" that degrades the livelihood of succeeding generations, then "development" will need to be redefined. Finally, many "developed countries" seem to be moving towards a growing gap in wealth distribution: the rich are getting richer, while the poor are getting poorer: this trend is apparent in the U.S. in the last decades, and the trend seems to be emerging in Japan. The educational system seems increasingly a part of the process in which social justice is perverted, and greater inequalities are generated. Education and "development" must now be viewed in the light of what is emergent for the developed nations since their future progress is cast into doubt. "Education" and "development" must thus be viewed as enigmatic concepts, and our conceptual framework must be fluid; we cannot rest on static conceptions of what is "developed" or what is "educational" --as these are terms that rest on the "soft" foundations of the normative, the qualitative, and the possible. References Bellah, Robert (1957). Tokugawa Religion. The Cultural Roots of Modern Japan. New York: Free Press. Collins, Randall. (1986). Weberian Sociological Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press. Collins, Randall. (1997). An Asian Route to Capitalism: Religious Economy and the Origins of Self-Transforming Growth in Japan. American Sociological Review, 62, 843-865. Harrell, Paula. (1992). Sowing the Seeds of Change: Chinese Students, Japanese Teachers, 1895-1905. Studies of the East Asia Institute, Columbia University. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 290 pp.