The purpose of this paper is to consider the subjects of education expenses policies (in this paper, elementary and secondary education) of the Democratic Party Administration, reconfirming that the Governmental fiscal policies and state have a great influence on the contents of educational budgets, educational policies, and the actors' political activities in the situation before and after a change of Government. Under the former Liberal Democratic Party Administration, the range of choice of the education policies was narrowed remarkably, with educational policies pointing to efficiency against the background of a severe restriction on educational budgets and the retreat of the power of the bunkyouzoku (politicians associated with the governing party and education). The inauguration of the Democratic Party Administration became an opportunity to overcome the severe restrictions of the educational budget and the stale situation of educational policies under the administration of the Liberal Democratic Party. Enactment of a tuition-free bill for high school was a symbol of the dynamism of the education policies to be determined by the Cabinet initiative with the change of the Government. However, while national bond dependence of the country has exceeded the cautionary zone, many educational expenses policies, following the plan for free high school tuition, are faced with the problem of whether sources of revenue are securable with the subjects of a tax increase and fiscal reconstruction looming large in the public. It is thus opaque how far the Administration will continue to be able to secure educational expenses under this initiative from now on. Moreover, another concern is the educational expenses policies technique of the Democratic Party Administration. The feature of the educational expenses policies of the Administration is a conversion to a demand side (family and child) from a supply side. In order to convert the conventional supply side into a demand side, it is necessary to change the conventional rule and structure of resource allocation based on the educational condition maintenance to a new rule and structure of resource allocation suitable for the principle of "equality based on each child." However, an awareness of the issues of making the new rule and structure of resource allocation suitable for the "equality based on each child" is weak in terms of the policies of making high school tuition free and introducing child allowances which were realized first by the new Administration. Since there is no prospect of a fiscal reconstruction which includes a tax increase and revenue-and-expenditure reform or the vision of social economy reform in the policies of the Democratic Party and the new Administration, the Democratic Party and the new Administration cannot actually carry out a new view which builds new rules and a structure of resource allocation corresponding to the above-mentioned "equality based on each child." It is clear that the maintenance of educational conditions and educational fiscal administration with the feature of "the equality of a field" focused on a supply side, were based on centralization and lacked a deeper consideration of "equality based on each child.". At this point, the policy shift became focused on the demand side to be challenged by the Democratic Party Administration. It is an important subject for Japanese education. However, the choice to improve the problems of the current system by maintaining the strong points of the present educational administrative and financial system with the feature of "the equality of a field" should not be denied.

View full abstract

Education expenditures for local governments, especially for compulsory education, changed remarkably from the year 2000. The purpose of this paper is to make clear the present state and problems of compulsory education expenditures in local governments. The paper analyzes compulsory education expenditures in prefectures in relation to the reform of government finance from 2004 to 2006 (sanmi ittai kaikaku) and the compulsory education expenditures in municipalities closely connected with elementary and junior high schools. It was shown that the compulsory education expenditures in the central government and in prefectures were influenced by a reduction in the amount of state subsidies for compulsory education with the reform of government finance from 2004 to 2006. It was also made clear that compulsory education expenditures in municipalities decreased with the local allocation tax cut down recently. By the decrease of compulsory education expenditures, particularly in municipalities, it is supposed that expenditures allocated to elementary schools and junior high schools directly from municipalities will be cut down and that the education cost paid by guardians will increase. So it is important to secure a national standard in the area of compulsory education and to increase the compulsory education expenditures of municipalities. The wages of teachers, clerks, and dieticians working in elementary schools and junior high schools are paid for by public money (state money and prefecture money). Before the reform of government finance from 2004 to 2006, half of the public money was state money. But prefectural support surpassed state money by a ratio of two to one from 2006. So it is important that half of the wages of all teachers and school staff, according to the law, be borne by the national treasury as before. An increase in state subsidies for compulsory education will thus be needed. The decrease of the amount of local allocation tax, in particular in the years 2003-2006, had a great influence on local governments. An increase of the amount of the local allocation tax to improve the severe financial situation of municipalities will also have to be instituted. And there will be the possibility of increasing education expenditures in municipalities. In particular, expenditures allocated to elementary schools and junior high schools directly from municipalities are of importance.

View full abstract

Japan's government ruled by the Liberal Democratic Party pursued a policy for fostering 'world-class universities', like most of governments in developed and middle income countries. The emergence of a new government ruled by the Democratic Party of Japan in September 2009 may mean a fundamental change in the policy of higher education finance in this country in this respect. In this article, the author examines Japan's higher education policy since the 1990s, focusing on the trials to foster these 'world-class' universities. Facing the rapid growth of the idea of the knowledge-based society, higher education finance of Japan has been relying more and more on science and technology policy rather than higher education policy. At the same time, the internationalization of higher education has become more stressed as an alternative solution under budgetary pressure. The 'world-class university' policy in the last two decades did not lead to a significant increase of public investment in top universities, and, naturally, did not realize the positioning of Japanese universities in the world university rankings at a higher level. Under the new government, access to higher education and direct support to the families in childcare have been given financial priority. Although the value of public investment into science and technology is widely recognized, investment in universities which can provide a high quality education and advanced research is not well-accepted among the general public. Overall, the destiny of the 'world-class university' in Japan is unclear, especially given the uncertain policy environment seen today.

View full abstract

This article aims to make clear the recent trends in household educational cost burdens in order to show the public policy for alleviating them. It uses mainly the "Household Survey." Incomes were found to be almost all decreasing in the period after 1997. Because of the rise in educational costs, burdens on families have also been increasing. According to those trends concerning the contribution of educational expenditures to overall consumption and education items, households can be seen as saving for supplementary education fees. To lower the burden on households, it is desirable to introduce a tuition fee deduction from taxed income.

View full abstract

Since the 1980s, New Public Management (NPM) has been introduced to and implemented in the major member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Since then, NPM has evolved over time qualitatively from "the Re-Examination of the Role of the Government" (first phase) to "the Operation Method Reform of the Government Organization" (second-stage), and finally into "the Budget and Financial Management Reform" (third stage). During the same period as the introduction of NPM since the 1980s there have been new trends in education such as the decentralization of educational achievement responsibility, expanded options by parents, and promotion of further increased competition among schools. With these changes in mind, this article will look at the necessary conditions for successful new governance based on NPM. While following the evolving process of NPM, including various administration and financial management reform methods, the paper will evaluate the influence of each NPM stage on the Educational Budget and Administration sectors. NPM also had many influences on the education sector, and various new governance systems were introduced to promote Educational Administrative and Financial Reforms. They were centered on i) the combination of delegation of authority and evaluation as well as ii) conversion of principles from resource-investment-based to achievement and performance-based. However, both systems have problem areas, and for Educational Administrative and Financial Reforms based on NPM, it will be required to have i) a further improvement of monitoring and assessment methods of educational achievement and ii) further clarification of the content of the cost of education system and the promotion of its management. To overcome these issues, the author would like to count on the Public Accounts Reform as a part of the NPM's third stage, "Budget and Financial Management Reform." "Double-entry bookkeeping system / accrual accounting," will articulate the relationship between flow and stock, and more accurate calculation of the cost of education will be possible/ available. In addition, utilizing the property preservation control function (bill rule) which inheres within accountancy will enable an educational organization to build the structure that allows them to secure educational finances as well as to plan for continuous maintenance and improvement of the scale of educational administration. In the education sector, there is a unique characteristic of investing a large amount of funds in human resources, therefore, further development of the study of the mechanism to measure and evaluate human resources (Human Resource Accounting) may hold the key to the future success and failure of the implementation of NPM in the education sector.

View full abstract

Population in Japan has been declining even faster than other developed countries in the world. Among other policy goals, this requires the reconstruction of the financial system of public education. Reduction in both class and school is inevitable, so it is necessary to adjust to a new situation for maintaining the public educational system. This paper discusses a sustainable finance system for public education in population decline. First of all, class size and school size until 2035 is estimated based on population forecast data of each municipal district, city, town and village (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research). Next, several policy designs, ideas that will ease sudden changes are assumed, and the government fiscal expenditure needed are respectively estimated. As a result, it was confirmed again that the downsizing of public schools and classes are remarkably advanced and also that government fiscal expenditure for public education has been and will be sharply reduced, especially in the rural municipal districts, unless there is some adjustment. In addition, it was clarified that the trajectory of lower class size will not have much influence on the total amount of government fiscal expenditure for public education. That is why the influence of a decrease of the number of school-aged children is relatively larger than the change of lower class sizes for the near future. Additionally, the per-head formula for public schools relatively tends to reduce the amount of government fiscal expenditures to the public education beyond that of a per-class formula. From these findings, this paper proposes three ideas for designing a sustainable public educational finance system that absorbs the risk of population change. First, we propose to introduce an aid formula for a sparsity factor which will allocate funds to school with large districts but a sparse attachment area in addition to the current per-class formula. Such a system will ease the severe mutation of government fiscal aid for public school to some degree. Second, the educational expense standard per school or per student have to be calculated. This standard will make it possible to prevent educational expenditure cutbacks in the decreasing phase of the school-aged population. Finally, it is necessary to achieve social consensus for expenditures, not only for senior citizens but also for school-aged children.

View full abstract

Evaluation systems have been rapidly introduced in the field of education in Japan since the late 1990s at the school, local, and national levels. Today, two types of evaluation systems are used in the administration of local educational institutions. One is the public sector evaluation system that has been implemented in the local governments. As per this system, the Board of Education should evaluate its programs using unified forms and processes, similar to mayoral bureaus. The other is the so-called "Inspections and Evaluations" system, which was enacted by the Law Concerning the Organization and Functions of Local Educational Administration in 2007. As per this system, the Board should perform evaluations on its own terms. This article examines the impact of these systems at the local government level from the viewpoint of democratic control over the administration of educational institutions. Evaluation systems have particular significance for democratic control over administrative bureaucracies. Over the past few decades, members of Boards of Education have played a limited role in policy processes, due to their "delicate" positions as appointed (as against elected) part-time members. In this situation, the new systems could provide them with effective means to control policy processes. It would also help us to analyze whether these systems promote democratic control. The first section of the present article discusses the characteristics of the two systems, including their similarities and differences. The second section deals with the case of the Nakano Ward Government (NWG), in which public sector evaluation has been implemented since 2001. The NWG evaluation system includes internal evaluation (self-evaluation) and external evaluation (by an evaluation committee). Interviews were conducted with ward staff and committee members and observations made of the external evaluation and a meeting of the Board of Education in 2009. The characteristics of the NWG evaluation system are revealed in comparison with the evaluation systems of other ward governments in Tokyo. In conclusion, while the public sector evaluation system emphasizes outcomes and cost benefits, the Inspections and Evaluations system stresses the status of programs rather than their outcomes and costs. In the NWG, the external evaluation committee, especially its local resident members, play active roles in the evaluation process, while the Board members have only limited passive roles. Some results of external evaluations concerning cost reduction have led to reforms, but other recommendations could not be put into practice. Consequently, the public sector evaluation system in NWG surpasses the Inspections and Evaluations systems of the other wards by offering more detailed and effective information ; however, as a means of democratic control, it has limitations. In the future, we should consider how evaluation systems work as an effective means of democratic control. In order to reach any generalization, additional empirical research of other cities should also be conducted.

View full abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze to what degree the present school evaluation systems adopted by local school boards incorporate a "value internalizing function," namely the function of encouraging school personnel to internalize the values of these local school boards. Among the values that could be internalized by school evaluation systems, this paper focuses on those values concerning school management and staff structure. This paper takes up twenty school evaluation systems in twenty municipalities. It analyzes them from three points of views : 1) What values concerning school management are internalized, 2) What mechanism is introduced, and 3) How strongly the values are imposed on schools. With regard to the first point of views, the author divides the school evaluation systems into two types. The first is the "top-down" type, which intends to introduce a top-down structure into the decision making process. The other is the "bottom-up" type, which intends to introduce a bottom-up structure into the process. The author evaluates how strongly each of the school evaluation systems requires schools to observe the structures of the decision-making process. Lastly, the author evaluates how far the systems develop the details of the objects of evaluation. Applying this analysis to school evaluation systems in twenty municipalities, this paper concludes as follows : (A) Twenty school evaluation systems taken up in this article show a strong trend towards a top-down type of management and (B) As to the strength and the details of this requirement, the author finds out two polarized trends. The school evaluation systems of eight municipalities can be seen as strong and detailed, while others are weak and vague.

View full abstract

This paper aims to examine the differences of teacher salaries in public compulsory education schools among prefectures. Two research questions were exmined : 1) What is and entry level teacher's salary prescribed by prefectures for 2007 to 2009? and 2) Can the answer to the first question hold true for the years from 2001? With these questions in mind, the paper discusses the meaning of the differences of teacher salaries among prefectures through a comparison of entry level salaries of teachers with those of general administrative officers among 47 prefectures from 2001 to 2009. The following results were obtained : First, teacher salaries are linked to general administrative officer's salaries. The general administrative officer's salary is determined by ordinance on the basis of city personal authority's advice and city councils ratification based on the price index and the pay level of private companies in each prefecture. Second, this relationship did not change, even when the rate of national grants to compulsory education was reduced from 1/2 to 1/3. Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that the main cause of the difference of teacher salaries among prefectures is the public finance circumstance in each prefecture and that the difference does not expand if the rate of national grants to compulsory education was reduced.

View full abstract

The purpose of this paper is to consider the big picture of the presidential appointment system of national universities after World War II and to explore what kinds of presidents were selected under the system. The system of president appointment prevailed in all imperial universities since the system was established in the wake of the Tomizu and Sawayanagi incidents, although legislation to this effect was not fulfilled. This system restricted the constituency of candidates to professors with methods of election : 1) Candidates narrowed down by preliminary committee in advance and 2) A president elected through several elections without a prior selection of candidates. The election system remained with an expansion in the constituency even after the postwar national university system was inaugurated in 1953 which included provision for electing a president independently. In the presidential selection at that time there were only four presidents who were elected at their old universities. The internal promotion system of a president was not a common pattern given the circumstances of antagonism among faculties and the shortage of candidates eligible for president. In addition, "the principal as the professional" that was the personnel transfer route of the Ministry of Education was dismantled because of the system entitling national universities to hold an independent election for presidents. Recommendations of the Central Council for Education (1963) and University Council (1995) pointed out that nearly all presidents actually had little in the way of management skills and that elections tended to become sensational and be favorable for large-scale faculties. The election system, however, has remained in national universities even after these recommendations. The presidents of national universities selected under the postwar election system have had the following characteristics : 1) Almost all national university presidents were selected in their early 60s as they came up to forced retirement as professors of a national university, 2) The number of presidents who graduated from imperial universities or former imperial universities has decreased, and the number of inbred candidates for national universities for presidents has increased, 3) Presidents being given internal promotion have become the majority, and 4) Almost all of these presidents in the postwar period were from the faculties of medicine, technology, science, education, agriculture, or economics. The presidents of national universities have been transformed from being seen as the "president as a symbol of the university" who was a graduate of other imperial universities, which was found at the beginning of the postwar period, to the "president as a symbol of collegiality" selected from his university and well-informed about that particular university. This tendency has remained after national universities were incorporated.

View full abstract

The question is whether we should promote and practice adult education at public expense. This problem about the necessity of public adult education has been accounted for by the promotion of decentralization. We can assume two choices for putting the autonomy of citizens into practice. One is a view that we can reduce the responsibility for informal adult education because it is enough for them to learn on a voluntary basis. The other is an idea that it should be necessary for adults to have the opportunity for continuous or complementary education for the sake of democratic governance. Wide differences exist among individuals in educational achievements ; therefore, it is important for them to have enough chances to learn at any one given point in time. This paper examines empirically whether and how adult education has any possible effects for people's psychological involvement in politics as active citizenship, and then considers some policy proposals. A logistic regression analysis to confirm any effects of formal and informal education and non-formal lifelong learning on people's political engagements was made which especially focused on the degree of psychological involvement, which can be strongly affected by education. Dependent variables dealt with as cognitive variables of political engagement include the sense of political efficacy and political obligation. Independent variables are schooling, informal adult education and non-formal lifelong learning, with certain variables added about individual attribution and other social factors for control. The analysis is based on the integrated data of JGSS-2000 and JGSS-2001. The findings of this analysis are as follows : 1) The higher the level of schooling achievement, controlling for other demographic variables, the more they feel political efficacy and political obligation. 2) In addition, their experience of informal adult education courses and reading books have positive effects on psychological involvement in politics. 3) Political obligation is affected by people's participation in hobby groups and hobby-oriented educational courses besides belonging to voluntary groups. These findings demonstrate the relationship between psychological involvement in politics and participation in lifelong learning besides schooling. While the sense of political efficacy is enhanced with pragmatic and technical knowledge, the sense of political obligation is improved with academic knowledge and social networks based on various group activities. Therefore, policy proposals might be as follows : First, courses, including lectures on pragmatic and technical contents, should be instituted to lend intensive support to people who have not experienced higher education. Second, governments and public agencies should not only allow the market to provide multiple programs and courses of adult education but also to promote and support people's participation in informal educational courses and non-formal learning networks.

View full abstract