Kumon - Educational system assisting school students

Lalitha Padmini Wijesinghe

Japan is world renowned as the leader in new technological innovations. ‘Kumon’ is an innovative education system introduced by this country of new innovations aiming to change the traditional education methods and revolutionize the education delivery system.

In 2008 Kumon is celebrated its 50th anniversary and had its humble beginning was 50 years ago at a house of a Japanese high school mathematics teacher. After establishing the first Kumon center in 1958 in the city of Osaka today it has established itself as the most widely spread and popular supplementary education providing organisation in Japan.

Kumon is a relatively new concept to Sri Lanka, in countries such as United States of America, Canada, Great Britain, Australia and in countries in the continents of Europe, Africa, Kumon has been well established and been providing a great service to the student population of those communities. Kumon education centers are operating in 45 different countries and is rapidly increasing and expanding its services all around the world.

Kumon has been identified as the method used by most number of students in world collectively to study Mathematics and Languages. Dr. Ronsheehy at State University in Georgia has introduced Kumon as “Innovative method which has simplified everything in education.”

Academic levels

The Kumon system can be used to assist school students of all ages and all academic levels, Mr. David W Russell the author of the book “Every Child an Achiever: A Parent’s Guide to the Kumon Method” has described Kumon as the world’s most comprehensive “lesson studying system” to study mathematics and languages and has mentioned that Kumon system has revolutionised the field of education by being more effective than any of the traditional education methods.

Toru Kumon is the founder of Kumon education system. He eagerly followed self study method in his school days and achieved successful results from it.

Mr. Kumon applied the experience he received as a school student in developing Kumon method and this has resulted in shaping Kumon method to the practical and successful education system it is today, Mr. Kumon first applied the Kumon method with his own son who was studying at 2nd grade at the time and was not excelling in the subject of mathematics at school.

Experimenting and applying the Kumon method proved to be successful in improving mathematics skills, Mr. Kumon’s son, after the initial success the Kumon education system was gradually developed in to an extensive and complete supplementary education system and is being embraced by the parents, teachers and the students all around the world.

Structured

Kumon is categorised as a self supplementary education system. The speciality of the Kumon system is that it is not a traditional supplementary education system and it is not structured aiming at a specific school syllabus. A student who follows the general school syllabus is given the opportunity by following Kumon system to develop specific skills in different subject areas and apply them in everyday learning experience at school which result in achieving greater results at the assessment tasks.

Mr. David W Russel stated that the ‘success’ is achieved by the student by following Kumon and the general school education methods and syllabus in parallel, he clarified this fact by “winning formula: school + Kumon = success” and verified and proved the success of Kumon as a supplementary education system through extensive research.

“Knowledge is the key to success” is a concept strongly upheld by the modern day society. Mr. Toru Kumon believed that for a child, school is the place to put maximum effort in acquiring knowledge required to be a successful and productive citizen.

Mr. Kumon stated that a good education system aims at developing the skills of its followers (students) and do succeed in reaching its aim when the maximum effort is being applied by all the parties concerned (students, teachers and parents).

School has the wide responsibility of developing the academic, physical and social skills of its students; in order to fulfil this responsibility school uses traditional and proven educational material and systems aimed at students clustered into different age groups.

These approaches used by school aiming at wide population of students often fails to identify the individual skills and weaknesses in students, which prompt the parents to seek supplementary education for their children beyond the traditional schooling.

The curator of Kumon also faced the same problem first hand as a parent which encouraged him to develop the Kumon supplementary education system to treat the academic weaknesses his child was experiencing at school. Kumon introduced the concept ‘children can do anything’ and based on that aims at strengthening the individual skills of its followers and to achieve success as a result of that.

Concept

‘Practise makes perfect’ is another concept introduced by the Kumon system. Kumon system strongly encourages the students to engage in lesson exercises repetitively until they achieve all correct answers for all the questions in the lesson exercise.

This is one of the five main apparatus used within the Kumon system for the students to achieve proficiency in particular subject areas. This method has been further explained by Professor Joy Samuel at University of Minnesota who gives the example of a child repetitively engaging in reading exercises and gradually overcoming difficulties in reading, the professor has approved this method followed by Kumon system to strengthen the skills in the students.

‘Learning speed’ is another apparatus used by Kumon. In the Kumon system every lesson exercise has been allocated a specific standardised time frame which is been introduced as SCT (Standard Completion Time) and a student who completes one exercise within the allocated time-frame with hundred-per cent accuracy is given the opportunity to move forward to the next exercise.

The aim of this method is to build self confidence in the student and does not encourage competition among the students. Kumon provide the necessary guidance in completing the lesson exercises tailored to each individual student’s skill levels and needs.

Toru Kumon stated that “The children are capable than what we believe them to be, hence until they achieve complete success how proficient they are should not be revealed in front of them and should be encouraged to achieve complete fulfilment.”

Kumon system focuses exclusively on the individual student and is identified as an individual path to the knowledge without concern for the class room, or other students. Kumon has been specifically designed to develop independent learning skills in students.

The responsibility of learning has been completely handed over to the student and Kumon provides a qualified instructor to guide the student, until student achieves hundred per cent success rate at the end of each lesson exercise he or she has been given the opportunity to self-pursuit the relevant exercises.

By carefully developing lesson exercises tailored to individual students needs and skill levels and using quality and relevant learning equipment KUMON has managed to bypass the presence of traditional classroom teacher and encourage and influence student to become accustomed to self taught and self learning system. Lesson

The main parties involved in the KUMON system are lesson exercises, students, specialised instructors, and the parents. It is correct to introduce KUMON as a system for the parents who consider themselves to be the mediators of their children’s education. Children tend to engage in education activities more at home than in the school.

This requires parents to provide necessary assistance to their children in their studies. KUMON centres provide the necessary assistance to the parents to actively engage in their children’s learning activities at homes, this has made KUMON a well renowned and popular system among parents all around the world.

Parents in Sri Lanka spend their resources and time on children’s education and it has become the ultimate expectation of the parents to see their children excelling in academics and achieving highest possible social status.

learning activities

The vast revolution occurring in the Sri Lankan field of education through the build up of private tuition centres is aimed at catering for the parent’s need for their children to receive a supplementary education to assist them to excel in their learning activities at school level.

However upon analysing the result of national school examination results such as GCE O-level it is evident that the students in Sri Lanka are facing considerable difficulties in the subjects such as mathematics, Sinhalese and English languages.

This is a situation which should be addressed immediately for the sake of the future generation in Sri Lanka, a nationwide implementation of a proven supplementary education system like KUMON could be the solution to this issue.

As conducted in many countries around the globe a unified effort must be put forward in Sri Lanka by the relevant Government authorities and the private education providing sector to assess and introduce the KUMON system to the nation.

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