Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, the overwhelming favorite to replace Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi as prime minister later this month, lists education reform as one of his policy priorities.
Abe's latest book, "Utsukushii Kuni e (Toward a Beautiful Country)," suggests that the education reform he has in mind is modeled after a similar initiative implemented by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.
Thatcher, who took power in May 1979, pushed neoconservative reforms based on market principles. She privatized national enterprises one after another and sought to reactivate the moribund economy, derided as a victim of the notorious "British disease," through deregulation.