It is generally said that the post-war Japanese educational reform transformed "education controlled by the central government" into "education governed by local authorities."However, there has been a continuing debate about the characteristics of the Japanese educational administration system after World War II, judging from the relationship between the central government and local authorities. That is to say, it is a controversy whether the post-war Japanese educational administration system is centralized or decentralized. Furthermore, we have not reached a consensus, although plenty of studies have treated the subject. The reason is that we have intended to understand the administration system only by the alternative framework of centralization-decentralization. It seemes, therefore, to be necessary that we classify the concept concerning the framework of centralization-decentralization minutely. In this paper a useful new model for understanding the Japanese relationship between the central government and local authorities, which was proposed by Akira AMAKAWA in 1983, is adopted in order to classify them closely. Two criteria as follows were devised in his proposition: 1. <Centralization>-<Decentralization> 2. <Separation>-<Interfusion> The criterion of <Centralization>-<Decentralization>, which is a traditional one, means the autonomy of self-determination of local authorities considered from the relationship to the central government. On the other hand, the criterion of <Separation>-<Interfusion> means the relationship of administrative function between the central government and local authorities. In the type of <separation>, central administrative affairs are shared independently with the central government agency. To the contrary, in the type of <interfusion>, local authorities share some matters of the central government. Four types of central-local relations can be constructed from these criteria as follows: a) <Centralization-Interfusion> b) <Centralization-Separation> c) <Decentralization-Interfusion> d) <Decentralization-Separation> AMAKAWA emphasized that the type a) in the pre-war period was transformed into c) with the post-war reform. According to this interpretation, the character of <interfusion> has been continued. The same type is found out in the educational administration system. However, the characterisitic of <interfusion> in the educational board system is different from those of the governor's and mayor's. The latter is a system in which the Affairs of State are executed by a governor or a mayor as a State agency under the supervision and direction of a competent Minister. The former, in contrast, can be specified in terms of the form of control. It does not have a great weight with the educational board system to control with "supervision and direction." The main form of administrative action is "guidance", namely administrative guidance ("Gyoseishido"). The educational administration system can thus be recognized as a particular type of <decentralization-interfusion> .
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