Abstract
In the last decade, the Japanese government has submitted a series of education reform plans which have culminated in the 2006 revision of the Fundamental Law of Education. In these reform plans, the most crucial issue is how to improve teacher competence while accomｍodating rapid social changes. In 2006, the Central Council of Education submitted a report titled "The Way of Improve Teachers' Pre-service Education and the Teachers' Licensing System in the Future." This report suggested three points for improving teaching competence and reforming the teacher education system. The first point is to set up "Practical Exercise for Teaching" in the curriculum of teacher training universities. The second point is to found a teacher's graduate school as a new vocational degree course. The thrid point is to introduce a teaching certificate renewal system. Needless to say, these three suggested points will compel more than a few reforms and changes at teacher training universities. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the political meaning of the report submitted in 2006. Setting up the "Practical Exercise for Teaching" aimed to improve and enrich a serious new situation at teacher training universities. In Japan, not only teacher training universities but also many general universities have courses that lead to licensing teachers according to legally stated criterion. If many general universities succeed in producing sufficiently trained teachers through this "Practical Exercise for Teaching," teacher training universities may lose their exclusive position in the market of teacher education. The founding of a teacher's graduate school according to the 2006 report raises the university from teacher pre-service education to a graduate degree. Generally speaking, this should be appreciated by the teacher training universities. However, examining the details of a teacher's graduate school, we see the curriculum in these schools places extreme emphasis on practical aspects and their teaching methods have a kind of uniformity. The introduction of a teacher certificate renewal system will require all teachers to receive 30 classroom hours of instruction every 10 years. If conducted by teacher training universities, this new system may provide possibilities to enlarge their social function by offering meaningful lessons to the teachers. However, with the new system come other problems, such as arranging schedules and preparing materials. Through this analysis of the 2006 report, it can be noted that teacher training universities suffer from more than not a few disadvantages, including the loss of power to deliberate on and autonomously implement their methods of pre-teacher education. Pursuing and realizing teacher education reforms, teacher training universities possess very essential and significant functions. If the education reform plans by the government increase the disadvantages and reduce the power of teacher training universities, real, authentic teacher education reform will face serious crises. In order to overcome these crises, teacher training universities should re-examine teachers' role and try to re-define professionalism of teachers.
