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HEALTH & EDUCATION 56: Sum success Origins of the world's biggest education company The problem: regimented school learning In most national education systems teaching is divided into grades so that pupils of the roughly same age are taught the same standard of mathematics (and other subjects) decided by the state. However, pupils of the same age often learn mathematics at widely divergent speeds. Thus, in the grade system, fast pupils are frustrated and bored, and slow pupils are intimidated and discouraged. The idea: private-enterprise diversity The solution is to give students, particularly those who are falling behind in the rigid state teaching system, a chance to enter remedial courses that are designed specifically to go at the different speeds of different pupils. Example: the Kumon system Facing the problem of failing students because of over-regimented school teaching systems, a high-school mathematics teacher in Japan, Toru Kumon, invented a method which replaces the collectivist grade system with a more individualist approach. The Kumon method aims at mastery of mathematics problems with almost 100% accuracy at high speed - as opposed to a mere understanding of the basic principles. Each pupil begins by doing a diagnostic test to determine the standard of mathematics he or she has mastered. The pupil is then given a series of exercises which the diagnostic test suggests he or she will be able to do quickly with very few errors. Pupils do twenty minutes of exercises a day and visit the centre once a week to do corrections and receive more exercises. The pupil is given work of a progressively higher standard; the speed of this progress is tailored to the individual through a process of continuous assessment. Assessment: individual focus Kumon's individualist approach overcomes the problems of the collectivist grade system. It allows pupils to move at their own speed: slower pupils are able to move at a pace which does not intimidate and discourage them, and faster pupils are able to move at a pace which does not frustrate and bore them. The method thus allows people to acquire a skill to the maximum level, which their own abilities allow, which will be of enormous utility for the rest of their lives. This favourable analysis of Kumon is borne out by the studies. Several schools in the United States have employed the method with notable success. For example, students at St Catherine of Siena School in Dundee, Illinois studied Kumon for two years from 1990 to 1992. In 1990 the third grade (of course, these pupils were only nominally part of the same grade: in essence, as Kumon students, they had abandoned the grade system) took the Iowa test of basic skills and scored in the 39th percentile in computation; but by 1992 they had moved up to the 81st percentile. The fifth grade scored in the 56th percentile in 1990, but by 1992 they were scoring in the 74th percentile. The fact that the pupils are improving as they get older does not establish the superiority of Kumon to the orthodox grade system. However, the movement of the grade up the percentiles shows that they are improving at a significantly faster rate than pupils working in the grade system. The pattern documented above was replicated, to different degrees, in a number of studies at other schools. The Kumon method exemplifies a mature individualist attitude to education. By teaching pupils how to work on their own, it encourages participants to take a more general responsibility for their own progress. Furthermore, the experience of getting almost all exercises right gives rise to the confidence which is essential to such a spirit of self sufficiency. As Brian Micklethwait (who supervises Kumon students in the United Kingdom) observes, Kumon steers a path between the crass collectivism of the traditional grade system and the equally crass devil-take-the-hindmost individualism of the over-ambitious and impatient parent. Results: calculus of success Dramatic alterations in the methods used in state education services rare. Public Choice theory gives us a cogent explanation of why this is so. All too often, the people who are adversely affected by a new policy are able to form a democratic lobby against it, while the (real, but dispersed or merely future and potential) beneficiaries are not. In the case of Kumon, a state-led implementation of the method across all schools would involve a reduction of the number of mathematics teachers: this group would form a powerful political lobby against the implementation of the policy. In contrast, the beneficiaries of Kumon - society as a whole, mathematics pupils, and middle- to lower-income parents - are widely spread out, unconnected, and unlikely, without direct experience, to recognize the virtues of the method and its potential benefit for their children. They are therefore unlikely to form an effective political lobby group. An attempted state-instigated roll-out of Kumon in government-run schools therefore seems unlikely to meet with much success. However, the statistics bear out the success of the dissemination of the Kumon method through private enterprise in the form of the Kumon Corporation. In 1962 the first Kumon centre was opened in Tokyo. By 1969 enrolment topped 10,000, by 1998 it topped 2.57 million. Kumon is now the largest educational company in the world. Indeed, the success of a private enterprise dissemination of the method must be explained by something more than the intrinsic virtues of the method. And in fact the explanation lies with the structure of the corporation and the way it grows. There is a profound contrast here with the operations of the public sector. Kumon Corporation is structured into a series of small centres which have purchased a franchise from the headquarters in Tokyo. The setting up of such a small centre does not create any sort of democratic lobby against it in the way that a country-wide or state-led implementation of the method might do; it is small-scale, and paid for by private individuals. The process then spreads gradually through the creation of new centres as the benefits of the method become apparent and knowledge of it spreads. These new centres are likely to succeed because the entrepreneurs who start them must make a financial commitment in order to purchase the franchise; something they are unlikely to do unless they strongly believe the approach is right and in demand, and that they can make the centre a success. The success of the Kumon Corporation lies in its decentralized structure in which a decisions about growth are made at the local level, close to its customers - in marked contrast to many of the world's over-centralized and distant state education system.s Despite its decentralized structure, Kumon can still benefit from the sort of large scale national marketing campaigns associated with large franchise operations. The modest annual fees contributed annually by each centre are pooled to help promote unified national marketing strategies, spreading consumer awareness of the Kumon method. Conclusion: stand back, teacher Could this be a model for state education more generally? The benefits of a system that is tailored to the speed and understanding of the individual learner are perhaps easiest to see in the field of mathematics; but in principle, any subject where school pupils grasp concepts at different rates - which means any subject at all - could benefit from the same, individuated approach. Why presume that the state has the monopoly of wisdom about how to teach? Why not open up state education to private-sector educational methods? For further information:
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Copyright 2002: Adam Smith Institute
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