 March 10 th and 11 th were special days for us, because the 5 th anniversary of the Kinyamonya center was celebrated in the grand manner. The most attractive event was the folk dance performances which were done by the primary school students of our island. But these students will also leave the island in another few years. In Japan the spring is the season of parting. Many of the junior high and high school students leave the island for their higher studies. There is no doubt that, the students here in our island must get the similar opportunity of education. In his very famous book “gakumon no susume” (An encouragement of learning 1872), Fukuzawa yukiichi explains the worth of studying. In this book he says that the status of the human is not decided by the god but by his intelligence. there is nor tertiary education in our island. So, students have to go for cities to get their education. Once they leave very few of them returned to their home towns. This is not just a problem of our island but most of the rural areas and the islands of Japan. Here in this article I would like to share my ideas with you regarding this issue.
Post war Japan put lot of effort to develop their nation. Rural youths from all over the Japan played a pivotal role in this economic development process and it was also a big chance for rural youths to find more secure job with more salary. The rural bright students started to study in universities. It was not an easier task for them to compete with the urban elite to get an education opportunity in a renowned university. Once they have made that leap they never want to go back home.
Still the rural youths run after the urban job market. The Japanese education system still geared to rural areas to supply urban areas with a disciplined literate and numerate industrial work force. Its already 60 years has passed from the post war and Japan went trough the high speed economic growth period and bubble economy period. At the present we can see that large Japanese corporations seek the business opportunities in china, India and many other developing nations. Foreign Corporation can freely enter to the Japanese market. In such circumstances small and medium size firms are getting tougher to manage. All these phenomena are directly or indirectly effect to the rural youths.
This is another story which I have heard from the islanders. There are no enough heirs to continue the family businesses. In the old days there are four or five children in a one family, so elder son of the family became the heir. Comparing to that there are only one or two children in a family. The business conditions are deteriorating year by year and even parents are not daring to tell their children to continue the family business.
With out proper experience and training, the family businesses are not that easy to continue. Once I had an experience like this. I had a chance to go for fishing with the fisherman of my island. It was my first experience to ride a fishing boat.I became seasick in few minutes and I didn't able to do any thing except sleeping on the boat floor. The traditional family run business is not something that you can master in one night. It needs massive experience and lots of dedication. In the other sense, even a person who was in town for long years wants to continue his family business in island will not be able to do that, because he is lack of experience and training. Some of the others think that there skills and experience can not be applied to the island. So even they have hard time in cities they never thinking of coming back.
So is there any thing which we can do for this issue. There are some policies applied by the Japanese government to enhance the quality of life in the rural area. “The slow life” boom and “baby boomers”trend had positively affected the rural areas. Even though I think that local people have a very special role to play, particularly the rural youths.
I think the present conditions of our island and all the other rural areas are very similar to the period of Meiji restoration. I think this is the time that rural areas have to catch up with the cities. Meiji era was the time that Japan turned their eyes on the western. Japan knew that they need the technology and the knowledge from the west otherwise they might be defeated from the western forces. There is an exceptional feature of the Japanese “catch up system”. Even though they were very keen to absorb the technologies and skills from the west, they were very vigilant for no to imitate the western cultures religions and western mind set. I think that's why Japan was succeeded in the process of catch up. I think that's the kind of spirit that we need in our island.
The graduates who leave the island in next few weeks, and their parents have the full right to decide his or her future. But if this island is lucky enough to have a one or two young spirits, who would like to use his talents and skills which he gained in the cities for the sake of island that will be a priceless gift for this island. Congratulations on your graduation and wish you all the best for the bright future.
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