[Opinion] Let`s Create Repechage System!

Let`s face December saying `Here I am.`

In every December, a senryu ( Japanese traditional short poem) by an anonymous poet from Kumamoto comes to my mind.

My families retreated from Manchu right after the end of the Second Word War, without having extra clothes. My father had no permanent job until he passed away at 58 and my families were terribly poor. When it comes to Decembers, creditors stormed my house from everywhere. And my father is always missing during December because even December did not help us to make any money. The father found the senryu from a newspaper and enjoyed it very much. I think it is probably because the poem mirrored the mind of my father that he would like to say, `Here I am.` when the creditors rushed, saying `Hello. Is there anyone?` to my house again in December that year. However, the father died, having no opportunity to say `Here I am.` when I was K-11.

In such a circumstance, I was only a backward student during the school days. But I think I had read many books. I decided to be a novelist after reading `Les Miserables` by Victor Hugo when I was K-2. I also dreamed to be a statesman like Julius Caesar when I was very impressed by Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans written by Plutarch. And also I dreamed to be a cowboy, riding on a horse across the prairie in Aso, since I lived at an outskirt of Mt. Aso. I worked at Agricultural Cooperative Association of the village after graduating high school. But I had never forgot my dream while I was delivering fertilizers and propane gases.

I went to the U.S. to have a practical training for 2 years at a cattle farm, reminding my dream to make a farm. And I, who was 6 years older than my classmates, entered the Agriculture department at Nebraska University. I studies there animal husbandry but entered Harvard Graduate School to study political science, fostering the earlier dream to be a politician. I am always very grateful that Harvard University accepted me, a foreign student who had never studies politics before. Harvard also provided me a good scholarship. When I was invited to Tokyo University from Zukuba in 1997, the mass media reported it as "From ACA employee to Tokyo professor." but I worked only for 2 years at ACA.

Thanks to the U.S. open and flexile educational system, I could have college education for myself in the U.S. The faith of the U.S. that the opportunity has to be provided to everyone equally regardless his or her nationality, age, or career, exerts a strong influence on the education system. After the Second World War, the U.S. as the leader of the free world has supported the economic development and the security of the Western countries, the most contribution of the U.S. is that it has given a dream to the outsiders over the world.

On the contrary, in Japan, probably same as in Korea, what school you entered is more important than what you have learned there. Cram schools for SAT war are flourishing and the investment of the parent decides the schools that their children go. Now the students of top ranking universities such as Tokyo University are mostly children of social elite class. Children are obliged to sacrifice their reading and playing in the process of competition and the backward students lost their dreams, which will finally break down the class. It is because people fully acknowledge that if they lose once they will lose forever since there is no repechage system in the society.

It is very painful to think of those who had failed the entrance exam for the colleges because of many reasons. The society must provide them a repechage system. Colleges have to open their class to more students so that people may come to study regardless of their age and the society must not discriminate the students who failed just once.

If I, who was a backward student, can say anything, human capability has no limit. I went to the U.S. because I had a dream to have a farm in the Aso prairie and I could go to Harvard because I had a dream to study politics. You may fail an exam but do your best, never losing your dream. Human capability has no Limit..

Gabashima Ikuo (professor of Tokyo University Law School)