In recent weeks the yobiko Yoyogi Seminar announced that it would be closing 20 of its 27 schools nationwide by March of next year. The reason is clear and has been for years: enrollment is dropping with no bottom in sight.
The term “yobiko” is sometimes translated as “cram school” and sometimes as “prep school,” and so they tend to be mixed up with juku, another education-related term translated as “cram school.” Practically speaking there is no real difference, since both forms of enterprise prepare students to take entrance tests for higher institutions of learning. But juku tend to be associated with elementary school and junior high school students, while yobiko are more often attended by high school students who want to get into name universities.
Just as often they are used by high school graduates who are doing the same. Since these grads are not attending a for-credit school at the time, they are referred to as ronin, the word that described masterless samurai in the past. And in a sense it is the loss of ronin that made Yoyogi Seminar realize its future was in jeopardy. This past spring, according to the education ministry, 80,000 ronin took college entrance tests. In 1994, the number was 280,000.
The obvious reason for the loss of ronin is that the so-called “narrow gate” for entering universities has widened over the years. As the birthrate continues to remain low the number of available students has dwindled, and at the same time the number of universities has actually increased, from 552 20 years ago to 781 as of the beginning of this year. Schools, especially those lower on the prestige scale, are desperate for paying students and thus have eased requirements for admission. Some don’t even require tests any more, but accept recommendations or school performance records. And without the entrance testing system most yobiko have no reason to exist.