Abstract
1. Purposes of this symposium. This symposium was held at the 35th Annual Conference of JEAS on October 8th, 2000. The purpose was to clarify the definition and relation of "Educational Administration and Public Nature." We cannot admit that clarification of them has already been made at the annual conferences since the establishment of JEAS. This clarification seems to be one of the most important questions in the studies of Educational Administration. 2. Fundamentals of three panelists' proposals. In this symposium, three panelists put forward a hypothesis as follows : generally there are two dimensions already accepted widely concerning the relation between education and its public nature. On the first dimension, people have a fundamental right to pursue happiness through educational process though the idea of right is very abstract. On the second dimension, people recognize that there are realistic and various individuals. If contemporary society must have an educational mechanism that guarantees people's welfare according to the actual conditions, we should theoretically admit and confirm the third dimension which has to be established. From above mentioned, we can hypothesize that the public nature of education would consist of those three dimensions. Here we should notice and emphasize the third dimension. 3. The most important point at issue. The most important point of the argument that the panelists presented is like the following : educational reform needs a certain space where multi-interrelated persons and various associations could collaborate together. All associations including educational administration could demonstrate their commitment to and promote the educational reform focused on school innovation. Therefore, we can say that the educational reform and its public nature contain the cooperative public space where all people could collaborate together. That's why the creation of such a public space would become one of the most important key words.
