The Diet has started discussions on a government bill to revise the Fundamental Law of Education. First and foremost, the bill represents an attempt to lay down a legal basis for using education as a means of instilling "love of nation" in students. While love of nation is something that should grow spontaneously in the heart of each citizen, the bill carries the danger of giving the state the idea that it has leeway to determine the "correct" love of nation that schools should teach students.
Thus the state could impose a particular attitude toward the nation on students, infringing on the Constitution's guarantee of freedom of thought. It would change the basic character of the current law, or the "constitution of education," which embodies the postwar soul-searching over how to avoid repeating the mistakes that grew into the ultranationalist, state-centered education system of World War II and before.
The bill, crafted by the Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner Komeito, avoids the phrase "love of nation." Instead, Article 2 of Section 5 includes, as an education goal, "cultivating an attitude that respects tradition and culture, and loves the nation and the homeland that have fostered them."