Diet begins deliberation on bill to adversely revise education law

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Diet begins deliberation on bill to adversely revise education law

The House of Representatives Special Committee on the Fundamental Law of Education on October 25 began discussing on a bill to adversely revise the law, the enactment of which the Abe Cabinet gives top priority to in the current Diet session.

Despite growing criticism of the government's failure to give a sufficient explanation for the reason why the "Constitution of education" needs to be revised, Education Minister Ibuki Bunmei in a committee meeting gave no reason why the government proposed this bill.

Outside the Diet Building, representatives of a wide range of organizations voiced their opposition to the bill.

The Abe Cabinet intends to forcibly pass the bill through the House of Representatives in early November on the grounds that the bill has been carried over from the previous Diet session.

Discussions on the bill, however, should be started over again from the beginning because the prime minister and the education minister as well as Special Committee members have been replaced since the previous cabinet submitted the bill to the Diet.

72 percent of respondents in an Asahi Shimbun survey and 69 percent in an NHK survey said the Diet should take time for a thorough discussion of the bill without forcing an enactment in the current Diet session.
- Akahata, October 26, 2006