National university law sets people to new struggle -- Akahata editorial, July 10
A set of bills to turn national universities into independent administrative institutions was enacted following passage through the House of Councilors on July 9, disregarding objections from opposition parties.
The bills came under severe public criticism because of the intent to strengthen state control over educational and research activities at universities, posing threats to academic freedom guaranteed by the Constitution.
We express our anger and protest at the three ruling parties and the Koizumi Cabinet for enacting the bills without adequate Diet discussions in order to introduce the new system in April 2004 as scheduled.
Inability to explain why
Parliamentary discussion of the bill, which started on April 3 in the House of Representatives revealed many questions that needed to be answered before a vote.
In the House of Councilors, the Japanese Communist Party pointed out that the Education, Science and Technology Ministry had instructed national universities to draft their mid-term goals and that the ministry has proposed funding 30.6 billion yen (260 million dollars) as safety expenses for avoiding violations of the Industrial Health and Safety Law without any solid calculation basis.
The bills allow the education minister to formulate mid-term goals for universities and allow the education ministry and the public management ministry to assess them so that universities will be placed under firm government control. Cutbacks in government funding for universities will result in increases in tuition fees. University executive positions will be open to retired bureaucrats. On the other hand, incumbent university employees will be deprived of their status as government employees.
When these questions were asked, Education, Science and Technology Minister Toyama Atsuko many times became speechless, told lies, made wild remarks, corrected them, and later apologized. The bills were so defective and the education minister's answers so irresponsible that even a ruling party lawmaker commented that the bills are like fragile glassware.
No wonder the struggle calling for the bills to be scrapped has rapidly increased among university staff and employees. Many faculty councils, staff unions, and student councils of national universities throughout Japan have called for the bills to be discarded. Each time a parliamentary committee meeting on the bills took place, the gallery was full of protesters.
Intellectual people in various fields and even the media severely criticized the bills. For example, expressing his concerns, writer Inoue Hisashi stated, "Both university autonomy and academic freedom will be disappear and it will turn Japan into a nationalistic state even worse than that of wartime Japan."
University people's struggles and parliamentary struggles prevented the ministry of education from accomplishing its initial goal to have the bills enacted in May. They would have succeeded in inducing the pro-bill forces to give up the legislation if the Diet session had not been extended for the enactment of the Iraq-SDF bill.
The House of Councilors Education, Culture, and Science Committee adopted an additional resolution restricting the ministry of public management's advisory to the education minister when deciding on improvement or elimination of universities. This is a reflection of people's efforts and will be a precious foothold for future struggles.
Inevitable outburst of contradictions
The force of majority was used to enact the bills to change government universities to be administered by independent institutions without consent from university people and the public. Serious problems will inevitably arise in regard to the new law's implementation and its details.
It is important to further heighten public criticism and the movement against the controversial law, and point to problems arising from this undemocratic law.
In defense of academic freedom and the right to education, the JCP calls for more efforts to be made in order to realize university reforms that are in the people's interests. (end)