An Analysis on the Public Nature of Contemporary Education Policy in Japan:From the Perspective of the Welfare State Model in Public Education

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  • 現代教育政策の公共性分析—教育における福祉国家論の再考—
  • 現代教育政策の公共性分析 : 教育における福祉国家論の再考
  • ゲンダイ キョウイク セイサク ノ コウキョウセイ ブンセキ : キョウイク ニ オケル フクシ コッカロン ノ サイコウ

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Abstract

 Research questions on what the public nature of education is and how it could be constructed have been one of the most urgent issues of education research and other fields of social science since the privatization of public education became explicit under the neo-liberal education reforms. To construct and secure the public nature of education, a number of researchers have focused on the roles and responsibilities of the national government while they criticize the theory of the “people’s right to education” on the reason of that it has not constructed proper governmental action. These researchers insist that the government should mandate a national common curriculum to secure the public nature of education and that the content of the curriculum should be based on the values and principles of the Constitution of Japan. These researchers have tended to demand a strong governmental role in public education because their concern is to prevent the privatization or fragmentation among the people, including parents and students.<br> Contradicting to these arguments, the author focused on a different phenomenon of the privatization in education, which has become quite visible since the establishment of the second Abe administration; the “privatization of education policy.” The author analyzed the “privatization of education policy” from the following three dimensions: 1) privatization of policy-making bodies, 2) privatization of educational purpose, and 3) privatization of school system. Through the analysis of these three dimensions, it was found that education policy has become much more “un-public” and “un-educational,” while it has promoted the interests of big business or the privileged class. From the viewpoint of the “privatization of education policy,” it was indicated that the way to secure the public nature of education was to control governmental power so that education policy could not be privatized, not to free its power. <br> To construct the public nature of education, and to make education policy more “public,” the author inquired into the welfare state model to delineate the proper role and responsibility of the national government in public education. Although the welfare state model has been criticized because of its paternalistic aspect onto the public education, it should be noted that the model has another aspect to secure the national minimum standard of the public education for all students. To overcome these contradicting aspects of the welfare state model, the author focused on the theory of the “school institutional standard,” which demands a governmental role in maintaining the systemic framework of public education. By focusing on the educational system (public funding for school facilities, number of teachers and class size, requirements for graduation et al.), the welfare state model could secure the state responsibility for public education while preventing paternal intervention into the content of education. It is needed to force the national government into securing the educational system, so that governmental power cannot be privatized or used privately.

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