The problems with Japan's education system are well known -- poor teaching in the universities; class disintegration (gakkyu hokai) in the schools -- to name but a few. So many students, unwilling to put up with the pressures and rigidities of the existing school system, are now dropping out of school (toko kyohi) that special schools have been established to bring them back into the education stable.
A key problem is the way university entrance exams effectively decide a student's employment future. Students who pass the exams are under little pressure to study properly since job placement is already decided by the reputation of the university they have entered. Universities, elite universities especially, are under little pressure to improve the quality of their education, for the same reason.
Meanwhile the harm caused by the pressure on students trying to enter good universities reverberates down the education ladder, almost to kindergarten level.