Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > Japanese Government Policies in Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology 2002 >Chapter4 Section1.4

  Participation of local residents with broad experiences and abundant knowledge or expertise in various areas of school education is vitally important in order to establish schools open to society and to diversify and activate school education. The following measures have been implemented in order to stimulate participation of working people or local residents in school education.

  The "Special Arrangements for Part-time Teachers without Teacher Certificates" employs working people or local residents who have exceptional knowledge or skills. They can be employed as instructors to teach a part of a subject or to teach comprehensive studies even if they do not have teacher certificates, as long as official papers are submitted to the relevant board of education in the prefecture. In FY2002, this system was used in 14,695 cases. (See Figure 1-4-3 )

Figure 1-4-3 Employment of Part-time

  In order to further enhance emotional education, this system is used for "Kokoro no Sensei" (teachers for children's mind). (See Table 1-4-4 )

Figure 1-4-4 Employment of "Teachers for Children's Mind" (FY 2002)

  In addition, with a partial amendment of the Education Personnel Certificate Law in June 2002, the promotional measures for the employment of more competent people from the general public were introduced. An example of this is the "Special Certificate System". The prefectural boards of education may award the special education certificates to those excellent working people without teacher certificates. By selecting from the general public by giving special certificates, it is expected that more people with broad and various experiences in specialized fields will be employed as teachers.

  Along with these measures, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, using the "Emergency Special Grants for Creating Local Employment" from the extra budget, has implemented the "Plan for Lively Schools" so that schools across the country can employ the general public for the support of the academic instruction of teachers. 30,000 people from outside school are planned to participate in educational activities in schools in FY 2002.

  Qualification of headmasters and deputy headmasters were relaxed in April 2001 in order to secure the utilization of many excellent human resources from a variety of areas. Anyone without educational personnel certificates can apply for the positions of headmaster or deputy headmaster as long as certain requirements are met. 22 civilians are employed as headmasters as of August 2002. They all work hard utilizing experiences cultivated in private companies toward the establishment of organized and functional school management. Efforts are also made to build open school systems by actively disclosing school information to the local communities. This movement brings a breeze of fresh air to the public school systems.