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Japan Contemporary Setting
The late twentieth-century Japanese education system
has a
strong legal foundation. Three documents in particular,
the
Fundamental Law of Education, the School Education Law,
and the new
Constitution, all adopted in 1947, provide this legal
basis
(see The Postwar Constitution
, ch. 6). The system is highly
centralized,
although three levels of government
administration--national,
prefectural, and municipal--have various responsibilities
for
providing, financing, and supervising educational services
for the
nation's more than 62,000 schools and more than 25 million
students
in 1991 (see
table 5, Appendix). At the top of the system
stands
the Ministry of Education, Science, and Culture
(hereafter, the
Ministry of Education, or Monbusho ), which has
significant
responsibility for funding, curricula, textbooks, and
national
education standards.
More general responsibilities of the Ministry of
Education are
the promotion and dissemination of education, scientific
knowledge,
academic research, culture, and sports. The ministry is
supported
by advisory bodies and standing councils, such as the
Central
Council on Education, and by ad hoc councils, such as the
National
Council on Educational Reform.
The ministry's authority and responsibilities are not
limited
to public institutions. Most of its regulations,
particularly
concerning compulsory education, also apply to private
institutions. The ministry has power to approve the
founding of
universities and supervises the national universities. In
addition,
it provides financial assistance and guidance to lower
levels of
government on educational matters and is empowered to
mandate
changes in local policies.
The ministry drafts its annual budget and
education-related
legislation and submits them to the National Diet
(see The Legislature
, ch. 6). Monbusho administers the
disbursement of funds
and cooperated with other agencies concerned with
education and its
finance. In 1990 a main ministry activity was implementing
reforms
based on the reports and recommendations of the National
Council on
Educational Reform, whose final report was submitted to
the prime
minister in 1987.
Each of the forty-seven prefectures has a five-member
board of
education appointed by the governor with the consent of
the
prefectural assembly. The prefectural boards administer
and operate
public schools under their supervision, including most of
the
public upper-secondary schools, special schools for the
handicapped, and some other public institutions in the
prefecture
(see Local Government
, ch. 6). Prefectural boards are the
teacher-
licensing bodies; with the advice of municipal
governments, they
appoint teachers to public elementary and lower-secondary
schools;
they also license preschools and other schools in their
municipalities and promote social education.
Municipal-level governments operate the public
elementary and
lower-secondary schools in their jurisdictions.
Supervision is
conducted by the local board of education, usually a
five-member
organization appointed by the mayor with the consent of
the local
assembly. The board also makes recommendations to the
prefectures
about the appointment or dismissal of teachers and adopts
textbooks
from the list certified by the Ministry of Education.
Mayors also
are charged with some responsibilities for municipal
universities
and budget coordination.
All three levels of government--national, prefectural,
and
municipal--provid financial support for education. The
national
government is the largest source of direct funding,
through the
budget of the Ministry of Education, and is a significant
source of
indirect funding of local education through a tax rebate
to local
government, in a tax allocation grant. The national
government
bears from one-third to one-half of the cost of education
in the
form of teachers' salaries, school construction, the
school lunch
program, and vocational education and equipment.
The ministry's budget between fiscal year
(FY--see Glossary)
1980 and FY 1988 increased a total of about 7 percent
(see The Role of Government and Business
, ch. 4). But as a percentage of
the
total national budget (before the deduction of mandated
expenses
and debt service), the ministry's share actually declined
steadily
during the 1980s, from about 10 percent in 1980 to about
7.7
percent in 1989. A slight increase was seen in the early
1990s. For
example, the FY 1992 budget provided ¥5.319 trillion (for
value of the
yen--see Glossary),
or 7.9 percent of the national budget.
Teaching remains an honored profession, and teachers
have high
social status, stemming from the Japanese cultural legacy
and
public recognition of their important social
responsibilities.
Society expects teachers to embody the ideals they are to
instill,
particularly because teaching duties extend to the moral
instruction and character development of children. Formal
classroom
moral education, informal instruction, and even academic
classes
are all viewed as legitimate venues for this kind of
teaching.
Teachers' responsibilities to their schools and students
frequently
extend beyond the classroom, off school grounds and after
school
hours.
Teachers are well paid, and periodic improvements also
are made
in teachers' salaries and compensation. Starting salaries
compare
favorably with those of other white-collar professionals
and in
some cases are higher. In addition to their salaries,
teachers are
eligible for many types of special allowances and a bonus
(paid in
three installments), which amount to about five months'
salary.
Teachers also receive the standard health and retirement
benefits
available to most salaried workers.
Whether for economic reward, social status, or the
desire to
teach, the number of people wishing to enter teaching
exceeds the
number of new openings by as many as five or six
applicants to
every one position. Prefectural boards and other public
bodies are
able to select the best qualified from a large pool of
applicants.
By the late 1980s, the great majority of new teachers
were
entering the profession with a bachelor's degree, although
about 25
percent of the total teaching force at the elementary
school level
did not have a bachelor's degree. The program for
prospective
teachers at the undergraduate level included study in
education as
well as concentration in academic areas. Most new teachers
majored
in a subject other than education, and graduates of
colleges of
education were still in the minority. After graduation, a
teacher
had to pass a prefectural-level examination to be licensed
by a
prefectural board of education.
Changes also occurred during the 1980s in in-service
training
and supervision of new teachers. In-service training,
particularly
that conducted under the auspices of the Ministry of
Education, had
been questioned for many years. After considerable debate,
and some
opposition from the Japan Teachers Union (Nihon Kyoshokuin
Kumiai--
Nikkyoso), a new system of teacher training was introduced
in 1989.
The new system established a one-year training program,
required
new teachers to work under the direction of a master
teacher, and
increased the required number of both in-school and
out-of-school
training days and the length of time new teachers were
under
probationary status.
The Japan Teachers Union, established in 1947, was the
largest
teachers union in the late 1980s. The union functioned as
a
national federation of prefectural teachers unions,
although each
of these unions had considerable autonomy and its own
strengths and
political orientation. Historically, there had been
considerable
antagonism between the union and the Ministry of
Education, owing
to a variety of factors. Some were political, because the
stance of
the union had been strongly leftist and it often opposed
the more
conservative Liberal Democratic Party. Another factor was
the trade
union perspective that the teachers union had on the
profession of
teaching
(see The Liberal Democratic Party
, ch. 6).
Additional
differences on education issues concerned training
requirements for
new teachers, decentralization in education, school
autonomy,
curricula, textbook censorship, and, in the late 1980s,
the reform
movement.
The union tended to support the Japan Socialist Party,
while a
minority faction supported the Japan Communist Party
(see Minority Parties
, ch. 6). In the late 1980s, internal disagreements
in the
Japan Teachers Union on political orientation and on the
union's
relationships to other national labor organizations
finally caused
a rupture. The union thus became less effective than in
previous
years at a time when the national government and the
ministry were
moving ahead on reform issues. The union had opposed many
reforms
proposed or instituted by the ministry, but it failed to
forestall
changes in certification and teacher training, two issues
on which
it was often at odds with the government. The new union
leadership
that emerged after several years of internal discord
seemed to take
a more conciliatory approach to the ministry and reform
issues, but
the union's future directions were not clear.
Data as of January 1994
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