The Kan Cabinet announced Tuesday a new list of joyo kanji (Chinese characters in common use). This represents the third great reform in Japan's postwar kanji policy. The list serves as a guideline concerning kanji characters used in the public sphere — laws, public documents, newspapers, TV broadcast, etc. One will see the effect when reading newspapers.
In 1946, the government announced a list of 1,850 toyo kanji (Chinese characters for daily use). In 1981, the government adopted a list of joyo kanji by adding 95 kanji characters to the list of toyo kanji, with the total reaching 1,945.
In 2005, then education minister Nariaki Nakayama asked the Council for Cultural Affairs to revise the joyo kanji list as the situation surrounding kanji was rapidly changing. The spread of information technology devices has led to an increasing number of kanji characters that people cannot write with a pen or pencil but can type with a computer keyboard.