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Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > JAPANESE GOVERNMENT POLICIES IN EDUCATION,SCIENCE AND CULTURE 1989 > PART1 Chapter1 �3 2

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PART 1 lssues and Perspectives of Elementaryand Secondary Education
Chapter 1. Changing Society and Improving the Quality of Education
�3. Future Direction of Elementary and Secondary Education
2. Improving School Management


In the operation of school education, a matter of prime importance is to have appropriate considerations of the developmental level and the characteristics of the pupils as well as the actual situations of local communities and particular schools. People concerned with the operation of schools must always keep these matters in mind in order to actively execute and improve educational activities in schools.

While school education has pursued quantitative expansion and qualitative upgrading of academic levels, the excessive competition in entrance examinations and an increasing number of problem behaviors have emerged, and thus, there is an increase of those pupils who do not experience school life with as much satisfaction as when the advancement rate to higher levels of education was lower than today. Those who are in charge of schools, then, need to endeavor to improve the school environment so that school will become a place where pupils are willing to attend to engage in active learning.

In order to achieve this goal, those who are in charge of schools must endeavor to establish stable relations between pupils and teachers, to provide environment in which pupils may maintain desirable human relations among themselves, and to give instructions through which pupils may feel achievement from learning.

With these viewpoints in mind, practical measures for the improvement of school management are discussed under three catezories, namely, the improvement of school administration, the promotion of opening schools to communities, and the promotion of cooperation and exchange among schools.

1) Improvement of School Administration

In order to have schools function satisfactorily as educational institutions, their proper administration is indispensable.

Schools vary in their environment, faculty and staff composition, facilities and equipment ; their most important task lies in devising effective administrative leadership systems which can mobilize these resources to produce the most beneficial education.

Boards of education and school juridical persons are in a position to administer the overall management of schools as their establishing body. They must also pay due consideration to enable schools to organize independent activities under the leadership of principals so that schools could achieve their goals effectively and productively.

Principals play a most important role in activating educational activities of schools, and are responsible to fully execute their leadership by taking an active initiative in learning instruction and student guidance.

2) Promotion of Opening Schools to Communities

Schools cannot exist in isolation, separated from local communities. Pupils grow with various influences and experiences from the families and the communities in which they are brought up. School education, family education and social education should have their unique functions, supplement each other, and, altogether, contribute to pupils in their development of desirable human character.

Schools are occasionally said to be exclusive. They are required, therefore, to be open to communities and to cooperate with them. In order to do so, schools must utilize the community environment and use community resources in teaching. Strengthened endeavor must be made to build a better relationship between schools and communities by, for example, asking for the understanding of and the cooperation from people of the community, and by listening to constructive opinions from families and communities on the management of schools. It is also necessary to give advice concerning the positive participation of pupils in extracurricular activities such as the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, and children's associations. Moreover, from the viewpoint of promoting lifelong learning, positive efforts shall be made to provide learning opportunities to people in the community, such as upper secondary school extension courses.

3) Promotion of Cooperation and Exchange among Schools

Schools do not exist in isolation. Schools can enrich school life and promote educational activities with broader perspectives by deepening mutual exchanges and organizing cooperative schemes. These cooperations and exchanges can be organized not only among the same type of schools in the same region, but also among those of different regions and categories.

Exchanges among schools may be organized, for example, as Joint school events and joint outdoor classrooms among nearby schools, as exchanges of letters and mutual visits between schools with different natural and social environments, and as exchanges between elementary / lower secondary schools and special education schools. Through these activities, schools as a whole will be stimulated, pupils will obtain broader experiences, and a cultivation of well-rounded personalities will be expected.

Cooperation among schools is meaningful and contributes to the improvement of educational activities from a renewed sense of broader perspectives, becaues it provides schools with opportunities to mutually deepen the understanding of each other's situations in terms of their pupils and instruction, through holding liaison meetings on learning instruction and student guidance, joint study workshop and joint training sessions. Also from the viewpoint of a consistent provision of education from infants through students, new visions and practices of cooperative schemes are awaited in which local kindergartens, elementary schools, lower secondary schools and upper secondary schools in the community agree on mutual arrangements for coordination.

Being related to 1),2) and 3) above, and also to the current trend toward five working days a week, it has become an issue to reduce the school week to five days a week. This issue is to be examined, as suggested by the 1987 recommendation of the Curriculum Council, in terms of the maintenance of educational standard, the study load of pupils, and the enrichment and stimulation of life of pupils inside and outside schools.


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