The education ministry had prepared lists of potential questions and answers to hide its systematic involvement in helping a senior official land a post-retirement teaching job in 2015, according to ministry documents.
The lists, which were presented by the ministry to an opposition party meeting on Tuesday, add to an amakudari (literally "descent from heaven") scandal that has already led to the resignation of the ministry's top bureaucrat and reprimands of other officials involved.
The lists, created last July by the ministry's personnel division, were intended to coordinate the stories among those involved and make it appear as if a former ministry official had arranged the senior official's employment at Tokyo's Waseda University at the request of the school after the senior official retired.