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The Education Japan Rankings
The Education Japan Rankings system is designed to provide students with all the information that they need about schools in Japan, so that they can make informed decisions about where to study. The main barrier to study in Japan is the lack of information regarding schools, and it is with this in mind that Education Japan created this website. The rankings are based on information from the Immigration Office and AIJP, and on actual visits to each location. Where a school has refused permission for Education Japan to audit the school, this is noted on the entry for that school. This is not taken into account when awarding scores to schools.
This ranking system is entirely fair and independent. Since we are not dependent on the language schools and other educational institutions for our income, we are able to be completely impartial. If you have any questions regarding our impartiality, please contact us for further information.
The database can be searched by region or the entire country for all factors. You can also customise the search to focus on the particular factors that are important to you. The following main factors are considered by the ratings system:
- Cost: price of courses and accommodation, living expenses, refund policy
- Courses: start dates, levels, flexibility, curriculum, entry requirements, postponements
- Facilities: classroom sizes, quality of facilities, internet/computing support, etc.
- Accommodation: size, location/distance from school, quality, transport, availability
- Faculty: full/part-time, qualifications, experience, native-speaker, availability for consultation
- Location: lifestyle, living expenses, facilities, sports, etc.
- Visas: duration, start dates, assistance with application
- Students: nationality spread, qualifications of students, age distribution
- Support: general support, counselling, airport pickups, transfer credit
- J Score: a composite score of all measures for all schools
We are always looking for student feedback from schools - if you have studied at a school, we would be most grateful for any contributions - please complete the questionnaire with your comments. They will be placed in the database for other students to view.
You can also request that Education Japan audit a school. Please note that this may take some time, as there are a lot of schools and we are in the process of working through them all. This project will take until April 2002 to complete at the present rate of progress; if sufficient requests are made for certain schools, however, we will audit them earlier than otherwise planned (click here for the audit schedule). Before you request an audit, please check the list of schools that we have already audited.
Why?
As mentioned elsewhere, there is no source of objective, independent information regarding Japanese language schools available anywhere - either on the Internet or in print. For this reason, we at Education Japan go to the schools in person, get reviews from the students presently studying at the schools, and combine this with reports from the schools themselves to provide you with the information that you need to make a safe choice of school in Japan.
Who?
The best people to rate schools are the students. They sit through the lessons, they know all the staff, they experience the problems; they are the ones who can tell you everything that you need to know about a school. For this reason, we include a questionnaire that you can complete online or print and send to us if you are studying at a school in Japan and would like to contribute to the database. Education Japan clearly distinguishes between the audits performed by Education Japan staff, and the reports from students and schools.
How?
The questionnaire that is used is here. We try to get as complete information about a school as we can, but it is not always possible to get all information about all schools, or sometimes schools have facilities that do not fit entirely with our system of rating. For this reason, we are constantly improving the system, and are always ready to hear your suggestions.
The information in the database is marked as contributed by a member of Education Japan staff, a student at that institution or staff from the institution itself. In cases where a member of Education Japan staff completed the audit, that person went to the school in person, viewed the facilities in question, spoke to students if permitted, took photos if permitted, visited student accommodation if permitted, and observed classes if permitted to do so. All this information is clearly marked on each form.