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CHAPTER EDUCATIONAL REFORM IN THEl970's

The following measures should be enforced comprehensively to secure the best possible teachers for the educational system, and to improve the quality of their educational activities as well as their social and economic status, since they will play increasingly important roles in the future.

(l) In principle, the teachers of elementary education and a certain percent of the teachers in secondary education should be trained in institutions of higher education with special curricula for that purpose (hereafter called 'teachers colleges'). On the other hand distinguished teachers should be secured by inducing the graduates of ordinary universities with certain qualifications into the teaching profession. In d ' measures should be taken to adjust the demand and supply of teachers over different areas throughout the country.

(2) In addition to improving teachers colleges as explained above, the government should take appropriate programmatic steps to train teachers and to expand the financial aid system for students in order to secure the necessary teachers for compulsory schools.

(3) It is necessary to consider the possibility of establishing a system of recruitment in which the potential teachers would be trained for about one year in special programs geared forward real teaching situations. These would be established by future employers who would then employ the trainees according to their performance. This will guarantee improvement in the in-service training of new teachers. By doing so it is expected that teachers will have more self-consciousness and a higher level of practical teaching ability.

(4) The system of licensing talented individuals who, although they may have no proper teaching certificates, are sufficiently erudite and experienced must be extended in order to invite them to teach in schools.

(5) Means must be found to establish institutions of higher education designed for advanced educational research and for teacher training and to start a system to give teachers graduating from such institutions with highly specialized qualifications, a special status and a salary in accord with that status.

(6) As to teachers' pay, improvement must be made to keep teachers' salaries at a level high enough to attract distinguished persons into the teaching profession, and at the same time to create salary scales which will ensure teachers of suitably increased salaries as their abilities become greater and their administrative responsibilities are extended.

In addition, since the people put a high value on education and expect much from the teachers, it is desirable that teachers form their own professional organizations and make efforts to improve their quality through a mutual exchange of experiences so that they may earn the respect and trust of society with there cognition that the teaching profession is a specialized one with highly developed skills and a firm professional ethic. If the teachers will make efforts to improve their quality continuously by means of such training, their constructive opinion s will be socially accepted and they will meet the people's expectations of them.