Japan Press Weekly

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2014 April 16 - 22 [EDUCATION]

Let’s resist Abe-style educational reform: Shii

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo at a press conference held on April 18 in the Diet building issued an appeal calling on the general public to unite to resist the Abe government’s attempt to strengthen political control over education.

Shii criticized a bill now being discussed in the Diet for altering the present system of boards of education so as to impose patriotism on children and to bring fiercer competition into schools.

Shii described the bill as a first step to place boards of education under the domination of the state or municipal heads in order to empower them to decide on educational policy.

The bill, if enacted, will also grant mayors power to appoint the superintendent of local educational administrations so that the authorities can proceed with a top-down approach to school education.

As Education Minister Shimomura Hakubun said in a magazine that currently widely adopted textbooks are all “masochistic and are demeaning Japan”, the government is attacking the commonly-used textbooks and aims to replace them with ones that glorify Japan’s past war of aggression, said Shii.

The existing boards of education are cautious regarding competition among schools and students. The Abe government, however, wants to accelerate a competitive atmosphere by allowing municipal mayors to make public the results of achievement tests at each school.

The JCP chair again called on all municipalities, schools, and communities in Japan to cooperate based on the common ground of opposing such an Abe-style educational reform.