Legislation to revise the Fundamental Law of Education, which the ruling bloc has just pushed through the Diet, will drastically change the direction of the nation's postwar education system. It will lead to more direct control of education by the central government, which could result in stifling creative efforts by teachers to improve education, molding children according to the ideological design of the state, and possibly intensifying competition among schools and children to severe levels with incorporation of the "competition principle" into education.
The original Fundamental Law of Education was promulgated in 1947, incorporating constitutional principles such as sovereignty's resting with the people, the right to receive an education, freedom of thought and conscience, and academic research. Dubbed the "constitution of education," it is based on the postwar determination of the Japanese state not to repeat the mistake of creating the ultranationalist, state-centered education system of World War II and before.
But the revision appears to be aimed in a direction that deviates from the path of the original basic law on education. Among education goals, the revision calls for cultivating "an attitude that autonomously takes part in building society and contributing to its development on the basis of a public-oriented mind" as well as "an attitude that respects tradition and culture and love of the national homeland that has fostered them."