2022 Volume 48 Pages 102-121
This paper focuses on early postwar Japan (1949-1954), when the Civil Information and Educational Section was leading school principal training, to clarify the administrative process regarding the criteria for issuing a principal's license at prefectural Board of Education Secretariats.
After World War II, the Education Personnel Certification Act came into effect in 1949, establishing requirements for obtaining a principal's license. That is, the criteria for the teaching certification exam (for principals) were conducted on the basis of (1) basic qualifications, (2) a certain number of years of service, and (3) the number of credits earned through in-service education. Therefore, candidates were required to submit documents (application form, personal statement, and certificates of basic qualification and academic status) for each license category, and the responsible authorities were also required to submit personal references and work references.
The Prefectural Boards of Education, established under the Board of Education Law of 1948, oversaw the licensing administration, and the specific procedures were to be determined by Board of Education regulations. However, there was no significant difference in the regulations among prefectures, which means that local educational administrations were not proactive. This was because the Ministry of Education standardized the purpose of the law and regulations and administrative procedures for prefectural Boards of Education through an "administrative liaison council on licensing". In particular, command hierarchies were adopted in the wake of the struggle by the Japan Teachers' Union who refused to attend accredited training courses in 1950.
The same was also true for the teaching certification exams. There was a certain degree of proactive administration at the local level in 1950 with regard to the submission of certificates by the responsible authorities. However, nationwide points of controversy emerged regarding the protection of vested interests for in-service teachers and the prevention of arbitrary administration of the certification exam. For this reason, through the above-mentioned council, the number of years of service and the number of credits earned became objective criteria for assessment.
Previous studies have revealed the centralized control mechanism based on the non-authoritarian leadership function in the "Central-Local" relationship within the educational administration. These studies saw the revision of the Board of Education Law in 1952 as a trigger for the provision of the authority of the Ministry of Education to direct and supervise the Board of Education with respect to government agency proxy administration. In contrast, with respect to the criteria for issuing a principal's license, which are the subject of this paper's analysis, we found that standardization through councils was achieved in 1950 and that functional centralization was observed in the administration of the certification exam in 1951.
