中教審「38答申」における大学の目的・性格の審議過程

抄録

 This paper examines the deliberation process concerning the “Purpose and Character of Universities” in the 1963 Report of the Central Council for Education “On the Improvement of University Education” (the “1963 Report”). Primary sources were used to analyze how the improvement of the postwar university system was envisioned.

 Following the postwar educational reforms, various types of prewar higher education institutions were unified into a single “new-system university.” However, this institutional uniformity has led to functional issues owing to the underlying differences between the original institutions. In response, the deliberations for the 1963 Report proposed a “differentiation” (typology) scheme that organized higher education into three levels (Graduate School, University Faculty, and Junior College) and three corresponding categories: (Graduate School University, University, and Junior College).

 A key finding is that Prof. Tatsuo Morito, the chair of the committee, drew on the United States model to define the four-year university as a “College” and the graduate school-centered institution as a “University” (the “true” university), thereby seeking to shift traditional Japanese perceptions of higher education. This differentiation scheme was not merely a revival of the pre-war system or a response to industrial demands. Rather, it represented an attempt to transition from a traditional elite model of academic research institutions to a new mass higher education model of universities as social institutions.