McVeigh (who has taught in Japan's higher education system for over eight years) shows that with so much weight given to examinations, students end up simulating much of their schooling. Grades reflect administrative expediency rather than academic achievement; class attendence substitutes for actual learning; and reforms attempts reenforce the problems. Thus although Japan's higher education system appears to successfully graduate students every year, it is actually a system of institutionalized mendacity that reproduces the less enviable traits of national statism.