Abstract
The basic standards for education in universities or colleges were revised on March 7th, 1991.The purpose of the revision is to simplify the basic standards and to show the fundamental principles of education in universities and colleges. After the Second World War, the Japanese Ministry of Education introduced a new education system for the purpose of establishing a more humanistic system. For the past 50 years, this system has been in effect also in higher education. The principle of this system is ideal and works very well in primary and secondary school education. However, in higher education, the time allotted for major subjects has been decreased from four years to two years resulting in a lower quality of professional education in Japan. Now, the Japanese Ministry of Education has started to feel anxiety regarding the future of Japanese higher education and has decided to improve this system. this revision will be the second one since the Meiji restoration. By this revision, Japanese universities and colleges will be able to draw up their own curricula. In return, they are asked to establish a self-evaluation system, which is necessary for accreditation. In many medical schools in Japan, the faculty for general education is being abolished and medical subjects are taught even in the first year. On the other hand, since medical ethics is very important today,medical doctors must be trained in this field. In this unsettled situation, lecturers of general education subjects must also be fully dedicated to the purpose of their medical colleges and strive to improve their teaching methods accordingly. I explained the situation of general education in medical schools in Japan and the principle of our medical college.
