Japan Press Weekly

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2016 July 6 - 12 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

LDP criticized for encouraging people to denounce teachers under guise of survey on neutrality in education

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party is facing a storm of criticism that the party is encouraging the general public to report on teachers under the guise of a survey on neutrality in education.

The LDP on its official website has published a survey form titled, “a survey on the actual situation regarding neutrality in school education”. The party is calling on those visiting the site to take part in the survey.

On the online survey form, a statement inviting participants to the survey points out, “Among teachers, there are some who ignore the norm of maintaining neutrality in class by proclaiming their stance denying political neutrality in education and calling for not sending children to war.” The statement went on to express concern that students may form opinions affected by a specific ideology through learning experiences such as holding a mock election at school.

The online survey form contains a field requesting respondents to report in detail about any inappropriate teaching case which departs from political neutrality, in addition to key fields regarding respondents’ name, age, sex, and other personal information.

This online survey has received fierce public criticism. On Twitter, for example, many people tweeted, “For the LDP, those who cooperate to send children to wars are ‘good teachers’” and “When a teacher voices opposition to war in class, is it a biased education?”, setting Twitter ablaze with comments. Following the growing public criticism, the LDP made a small change in the invitation statement, but maintains the survey form on the website.

Secretary General of the All-Japan Teachers and Staff Unions (Zenkyo) Obata Masako criticized the LDP’s appeal to people to join its online survey for encouraging people to denounce teachers, which constitutes unjust interference in education. Obata added such a move is unacceptable as it will bring about a chilling effect on teachers and deprive them of their freedom to express political opinions.