The Transformation of the University Autonomy in Japan(Reconsidering the Autonomy of Educational Manegement)

Abstract

This study traces the process of the establishment and transformation of university autonomy in Japan. The concept of autonomy is defined by the combination of self-governance and self-government. This study focuses on the latter, especially self-government against the power of the state, because the state has repeatedly tried to intervene in university autonomy since the Meiji era. In order to trace this process, the author divided these approximately 150 years into three periods. The first is from the beginning of the Meiji era to 1952. In this period the modern universities were established, autonomy was gradually forming as a custom before World War II, and the bureaucratic control of universities so far was eliminated after the war. The second is from the end of the occupation by the Allied Powers to the end of the 20th century. In this period the government colluded with industry to try classifying the universities into several types of higher education institutions, but they were finally forced to abandon this attempt and leave the universities to diversify themselves. The government also had to abandon the higher education policy of strictly regulating the numbers of universities and students because the number of children was rapidly declining. The last period is from the start of this century to the present. In this period the Prime Minister led deregulation and used evaluation as a tool for allocating financial resources to universities. At the start of university evaluation, the government clearly stated considering university autonomy and regarded the mission and objectives of each institution as evaluation standards. Recently the government has intensified intervening in the missions and objectives of the universities and is forcing university classification, making a distinction in financial support among the universities.