High price, market monopoly, low utilization rate...There are hidden worries behind Japanese school uniform culture
[Global Times Special Correspondent Wang Fangfang Lin Yue] The Beijing Municipal Education Bureau recently released the "Proposal on Actively Promoting the Marketization of School Uniforms under Effective Supervision."
As the "second skin" of students, school uniforms in various places have been "spit on" styles, poor quality, and forced sales by students and parents for many years.
To this end, the Beijing Municipal Education Bureau stated that the promotion of "marketing of school uniforms" can effectively improve the cost-effectiveness of school uniforms.
When it comes to high-quality school uniforms, the first thing many people think of is Japanese school uniforms, which are novel in style and full of personality, and even become a cultural symbol.
However, Japan has also experienced improvements and marketization.
Even to this day, Japanese parents still criticize it.
In Japan, school children wear school uniforms from the beginning of kindergarten, which are generally divided into ordinary school uniforms and "game uniforms" set outside of casual clothes.
After entering elementary school, most elementary schools in Japan allow students to wear casual clothes, but there are also very few private schools that require uniforms.
Junior and high school students will be uniformly assigned the same style of school uniforms whether they are in public or private schools.
Japanese school uniforms are mainly divided into three categories, namely sailor uniforms, stand-up collar uniforms and suit uniforms.
Among them, the most well-known sailor suit originated in several ways: one theory was designed by Elizabeth Lee, the dean of the Fukuoka Girls’ College, modeled after the uniform of the Royal Navy in 1921 and gradually spread throughout Japan. It is also said that it was from Nagoya Kinjo Academy. American teachers made reference to their children's clothes in 1920.
Based on some literary works, Japanese school uniforms are quite popular among many overseas young people.
But one of its outstanding shortcomings is that it is very expensive and even forms a market monopoly. This has been the focus of the Japanese government for years to improve.
A 2017 statistics on the price of school uniforms by the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan showed that the price of school uniforms in Japan has continued to rise in the past 10 years.
In 2007, the average price of Japanese school uniforms was 27,000-28,000 yen (1 yuan equals 18 yen), while in 2016 it rose to 32,000-33,000 yen.
In addition, the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan released the "High School Girls Uniform Price Ranking (2021)" in September this year. The top three are Aomori City, Aomori Prefecture (51,000 yen), Akita City, Akita Prefecture (49,000 yen). Yen), Kumamoto Prefecture (47,000 yen).
These three cities are all local cities in Japan, and are not very prosperous due to the declining birthrate and aging population. The main reason why uniform prices rank among the best in Japan is that the number of students has decreased and businesses have to raise prices for profit.
The significance of school uniforms is to facilitate school management, reduce comparisons, and promote mutual equality among students. However, year-on-year price increases have also made many Japanese families feel uncomfortable.
Japan’s "Asahi Shimbun" previously reported that some parents said that "the price of school uniforms for compulsory education is so expensive that it is not in line with the purpose of education itself."
Ms. Jin, a Chinese parent living in Japan, once introduced her children’s school uniforms to a reporter from the Global Times. She said that starting from elementary school, not only the clothes themselves, but the school also required the purchase of matching school bags. 90% of the new state will be replaced.
Japanese student Kasai also recalled to reporters that he grew up fast in elementary school, and soon he had to change to a new set of school uniforms; middle school uniforms were not worn for a long time, and several sets of uniforms had to be bought when enrolled. Some of them were very wasteful. ".
The monopoly of the school uniform market has always been a common concern in Japanese society.
Japanese media have stated that there are very few school uniform manufacturers, and there are even only a few well-known factories. Collusion between manufacturers and schools often occurs to monopolize the market.
"Tokyo Keizai" reported last year that 6 prefectural colleges and universities illegally colluded with 3 school uniform manufacturers to monopolize the local school uniform market, resulting in an average price of more than 60,000 yen, which is 11% higher than the average price in Japan. .
Masako Jin Guangshan, website editor of the American "Heffen Post" (Japanese edition), believes that there are many ways to reduce the price of school uniforms. Business bidding.
According to a report by Japan’s “China-Japan News”, some Japanese NPO organizations disinfect the used but neat school uniforms and provide them to children from impoverished families for free.
In addition to price, Japanese school uniforms have had other problems.
Although the school uniform unifies the school uniform, it may cause comparison and discrimination between different schools.
In the 1980s, Japan experienced a period of school violence and student chaos. Many students made non-compliant reforms of school uniforms.
Some poor schools have come up with management countermeasures, designing school uniforms to be more difficult to transform and have a sense of fashion, but on the contrary, it has caused the trend of students "want to go to schools with good-looking uniforms". On the one hand, they form a "school uniform despise chain", and on the other hand it leads to The level of students from prestigious schools has declined.