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Japanese history is characterized by a strong tension between isolationism and traditionalism, which have shaped its political, social, and diplomatic development. Despite its deep-rooted respect for tradition, Japan has demonstrated a remarkable ability to embrace modernization and technological advancement, particularly after World War II. The country rapidly recovered, implemented political reforms, and prioritized economic development through educational programs focused on technical training, enabling it to become a global leader in technology and industry. Japan’s society accepts profound reforms enthusiastically when they align with preserving its national spirit.
Recently, Japan’s conservative government, led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, sparked controversy by proposing cuts to public funding for humanities programs at universities. This austerity-driven reform aims to shift educational focus toward more “practical” and labor-market-relevant fields, with the goal of boosting employability and enhancing university rankings globally. While some universities plan to eliminate humanities programs, prestigious institutions like Tokyo and Kyoto have resisted, prompting protests by faculty and students. This debate echoes similar discussions in the UK, where funding for arts programs is also being questioned. Although humanities education is increasingly undervalued for its perceived lack of economic utility, its defenders argue it fosters critical thinking, cultural awareness, and creativity—skills essential for societal progress. Ultimately, Japan faces the challenge of balancing technical specialization with the preservation of broad academic training to ensure comprehensive development.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is launching an education reform to reduce bachelor's degrees in the humanities and social sciences as part of a plan to improve employment figures.
Isolationism and traditionalism are two of the hallmarks of Japanese history. Both have marked the history of the oldest monarchy in the world, the political and social evolution of the island and have also affected the diplomacy and foreign policy with which it has been handled internationally.
Japanese history always moves between processes of national reaffirmation. Like few other countries in the world, Japan has managed to jealously protect its traditional spirit and, at the same time, undertake profound changes and modernizations.
After World War II, Japan reissued its commitment to modernization and became a reference for the advancement of technology at an international level.
It recovered in record time, accepted political changes and focused on economic development, achieving industrial excellence that put it at the forefront of the world in a field as complicated as technology. Much of this success was due to the creation of educational programs that fostered the technical training of its population and laid the foundations to give a new direction to its economy.
Japan is a country that is not afraid of change, if they allow it to maintain its national spirit, and that is capable of attacking profound reforms almost without batting an eyelid. Changes are decided and society assimilates them and participates in them in a way, one would say, enthusiastic in view of the success achieved.
For the West, the decisions Japan makes are sometimes as incomprehensible as the sinograms of its writing. That is why the announcement by its prime minister, the conservative Shinzo Abe, that the Japanese government had decided to reduce aid to universities that maintain humanities degrees has caused “discomfort” within university teachers.
According to the Japanese politician, this reform is due to a government austerity plan that seeks to cut public education budgets based on finding “a more practical educational vocation that participates in the needs of society”.
Japan has 60 universities that have programs in the social sciences and humanities. Since Abe’s announcement, 26 of them have announced that they will eliminate these programs. Not so the universities of Tokyo and Kyoto, which have not only refused, but have been against the measure. For the time being, there have been protests by the teachers and students affected and the reform has softened their plans to be imposed before the start of the 2020-2021 academic year.
Koichi Hagiuda, Minister of Education, Culture, Sports and Technology, has defended these changes based on two reasons: to get young Japanese graduates in careers that allow them to easily access the labor market and to place more universities among the 100 most prestigious in the world.
Paradoxically, only the United Kingdom, whose leading universities stand out for their Humanities programs, has been the only Western country to openly open a debate on the usefulness or non-usefulness of the popularly known as “letters” careers with arguments similar to those used by the Japanese executive: to reduce the economic amount directed to arts careers in order to, in theory, reinvest it in technical careers that favor employment. In this case, the reasons of the British also have to do with making curricula more agile that accommodate today’s youth.
In the rest of the countries the debate is not open but it is true that, since the beginning of the economic crisis, the noise around it has increased considerably and, although giants such as Google, are continuously looking for “humanities” graduates to incorporate them into their structure, the truth is that the discredit of studies is growing, According to popular feeling, they do not help to employ anyone, nor do they have a palpable application, nor do they represent a source of economic wealth. This is the sign of the times.
Talking about the benefits of the humanities would lead us, of course, to one of those passionate debates where we could talk about the protection of our culture, the expansion of positive values, the benefits of acquiring reading habits… We could dispassionately say that humanities studies help to generate a habit of study, to positive memorization, to a way of understanding the world from a different perspective and, therefore, to build open minds that are the ones that, in some way, take us to the next creative level that is the one that evolves thinking and helps us achieve new goals and advances.
Purely statistically, and focusing on Spain, in terms of employability the differences are more between people who have a university degree and those who do not. The latter suffered in 2014, according to the INE, an unemployment rate of 47.3%. In that same year, the unemployment rates of humanities careers, being higher, did not show bad figures in some of their disciplines and, among those that accumulated more unemployed graduates were careers such as Architecture or Naval Engineering.
The most urgent thing, despite the Japanese point of view, seems to be that the academic training of the young population continues, in science or literature, in the face of the redirection of this group towards technical careers.
