thumb|right|LEC, one cram school company in Japan
thumb|right|The Nagoya office of Yoyogi Seminar
Gakushū juku (; see cram school) are private, fee-paying schools that offer supplementary classes often in preparation for key school and university entrance exams. The term is primarily used to characterize such schools in Japan. Juku typically operate after regular school hours, on weekends, and during school vacations.
History
Juku attendance rose from the 1970s through the mid-1980s; participation rates increased at every grade level throughout the compulsory education years. This phenomenon was a source of great concern to the Ministry of Education, which issued directives to the regular schools that it hoped would reduce the need for after-school lessons, but these directives had little practical effect. Some juku have branches in the United States and other countries to help children living abroad catch up with students in Japan.
While new media have been introduced into juku as instructional and delivery methods, traditional teaching is increasingly shifting to individual tutoring. This shift is partly a response by the supplementary education industry to declining numbers of children in Japan and the threat this decline poses to their industry.
Structure and curriculum
There are two types of juku, academic and nonacademic.
Academic juku
Academic juku can be roughly divided into categories.
- Locally based middle- or small-sized cram schools
- Schools for salvaging dropouts or children who avoid regular school (free schools, etc.) The fees are around ¥260,000 ($3,300) annually. They are best known and most widely publicized for their role as "cram schools", where children (sent by concerned parents) can study to improve scores on upper-secondary school entrance examinations. However, as seen above, there are also juku that provide supplementary education, whether remedial courses to help children falling behind in their studies, refresher courses to explain material in further detail, or courses that cover material on a higher level and thus appeal to children bored by the standardized class structure.
Nonacademic juku
Many other children, particularly younger children, attend nonacademic juku for piano lessons, English conversation, art instruction, Japanese calligraphy (shodō), swimming, and abacus (soroban) lessons.
Social influence
Juku also play a social role, and children in Japan say they like going to juku because they are able to make new friends. Many children ask to be sent because their friends attend. Some children seem to like juku because of the closer personal contact they have with their teachers and, for students in crowded spaces like Tokyo in particular,