The Diet has started deliberations on a bill to revise the board of education system, which would enable local government heads to almost directly intervene in education at local schools. This would destroy the neutrality of school education from political influence.
Both ruling and opposition lawmakers should remember that the board of education system was introduced after World War II to prevent school education from being used as a political tool — as before and during the war when children were instilled with the then regime's ethnocentric and militarist doctrine. The bill should be scrapped, and lawmakers should instead consider how to make boards of education function better under the current system when responding to various problems at school such as bullying.
Currently a board of education — set up both at prefectural and municipal levels — in principle consists of five members appointed by the local government head with the consent of the local assembly. Board members then select from among themselves their chief as well as the head of the board's secretariat, who will serve under the board's authority.