British Educational Research Journal

High student achievement across East Asia is often explained as an outcome of highly competitive, stress‐inducing college entrance exams across the region. This ‘exam hell’ drives students to study longer and harder than their peers worldwide, a race that leads—unsurprisingly—to higher marks in international comparisons such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Yet, the race comes at a considerable cost: psychological pressure, forfeited childhoods, regimes of rote memorisation, lack of creativity and private outlays for cram schools. In this article, we seek to refute this outdated narrative by focusing on changes in Japanese education over the past three decades. We first analyse quantitative data for learning time based on three longitudinal surveys conducted by researchers in Japan to show that learning time for Japanese upper secondary students declined during 1980–2000 (Study 1). We then turn to analyse PISA 2015 data to show that now Japanese students study less than their peers in major Anglo‐American countries: the USA, the UK and Australia (Study 2). These findings run counter to well‐worn images frequently rehearsed in both the academic and popular literature. In helping to remove one of the most persistent stereotypes about East Asian education, we seek to help make visible other explanations for East Asian student achievement.