As of May 2003, approximately 20.7
million students were enrolled in educational institutions from
the kindergarten to university levels in Japan. Elementary school
(six years starting at the age of six) and junior high school
(three years) are compulsory and about 11 million students—7,226,911
at the former and 3,748,319 at the latter(*1)—were enrolled.
Of the rest, 1,760,442 were in kindergartens, 3,809,801 in senior
high schools (three years), 2,803,901 in universities (four
years) and graduate schools, and 250,065 in junior colleges
(usually two years), 57,875 in technical colleges, 786,135 in
special training schools, and 189,570 in other types of schools.
As of May 2003, Japan had 23,633 elementary schools, 11,134
junior high schools, 5,450 senior high schools, 995 schools
for the handicapped, 702 universities, 525 junior colleges,
and 14,174 kindergartens.(*2) School attendance rate for the
nine years of compulsory education is 99.98%. The rate of advancement
from compulsory education to senior high schools stood at 97.0%
in 2002. Meanwhile, the rate of advancement to universities
and junior colleges reached 44.8 %.(*3)
Educational Reform
In March 2003, the Central Council for Education, an advisory
panel to the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
Minister, submitted its final report(*4) on the proposed revision
of the Fundamental Law of Education, or so-called the "education
constitution." The panel, which had been discussing the
issue since February 2002, proposed that the law be amended
to state that children should acquire "love for the nation,"
as well as a rounded knowledge of religions. If enacted, these
would be the first changes to the basic law since it was enacted
in 1947.
While the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is eager to submit
a bill to revise the education law to the 2004 regular Diet
session, its coalition partner New Komeito has taken a cautious
stance toward any revision of the basic law.(*5) A focal point
of the initiative concerns the phrase "love for the country,"
a touchy theme the council report hedged by cautioning against
equating it with the primacy of the state over individual sympathies.
In response to strong calls from some panel members to recall
the nationalism that led Japan to war in the past, the final
report says that love for one's nation must not lead to jingoism
or totalitarianism. The treatment of religion in education is
another sensitive subject, closely entwined with the interpretation
of Article 20 (freedom of religion) of the Constitution.
National Universities To Be Incorporated
Japanese colleges, both public and private alike, are undergoing
major changes due to an educational reform measure that calls
for all state-run universities to become independent ad-ministrative
corporations in April 2004.(*6) The step forces them to rely
more on themselves for financial support and to compete with
each other, a shift from the existing "convoy system"
in which competition is limited to levels that assure the survival
of the weakest institution.
In July 2003, the bill for conversion of national universities
into independent entities passed the Diet. This "incorporation"
of national universities marks the largest reform in Japan's
higher learning institutions since the establishment of the
Imperial University system in 1886 and the dissolution of the
elite schools and their replacement with the current system
in 1947. The national universities were integrated into the
government organizational network, and their non-corporate status
was quite rare among the colleges and universities of the world.
The presidents of national universities had little decision-making
power and they were supposed to act as government employees.
Conversion of these schools into independent corporations frees
them from the fetters of governmental regulations.
Special Deregulation Zone for School
Meanwhile, the government gave the go-ahead in October 2003
for special deregulation zones where joint-stock companies are
allowed to manage schools.(*7) To that date, stock companies
were not permitted to operate schools in Japan. The cabinet
office of Junichiro Koizumi has been pushing the school zones
as the centerpiece of the special reform program—one of
the main features of Koizumi's structural reform initiatives.
Digital Hollywood Corporation (*8), an operator of vocational
schools to train IT engineers, and Tokyo Legal Mind KK (*9),
which runs preparatory classes for takers of the national bar
exam, took advantage of the deregulation zones and the former
created a graduate school while the latter a university, both
to commence classes in spring 2004. The town of Mitsu, Okayama
Prefecture, also plans to lease the building of a closed public
school to a private company.
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