（5）The Education Reform Committee

A further step toward the realization of the "new education" was taken with the establishment on August 10, 1946, of the Education Reform Committee (Kyoiku Sasshin Iinkai) responsible directly to the Prime Minister as authorized in the Education Reform Committee Organization Order promulgated on that day. According to the Order the organization of the Committee called for a chairman, a vice-chairman and no more than fifty members. In cases where matters of a special nature had to be dealt with, the appointment of provisional members was allowed. GHQ had had a permanent committee of this kind in mind when it asked the Ministry of Education to create a committee of Japanese educators to participate in the investigations of the United States Education Mission to Japan. Although the original committee was dissolved at the time the Mission returned home, the new Committee included many members of the previous committee.

At the Committee's first general meeting, held in September, 1946, Minister of State Shidehara Kijuro, acting on behalf of Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru (1878 - 1967), stated that the fundamental cause of the recent defeat could be traced to errors in the educational system. Now, under conditions much worse than those that existed at the time of the Meiji Restoration, a second national reform had to be enacted, and the foundation of that reform would have to be educational reform. Thus, the function of this Cabinet-level Committee was to focus the attention of the national administration on the priority of educational problems. Minister of Education Tanaka Kotaro (1890 - 1974) pointed out that the Committee embodied three unique characteristics: its establishment had originated at the initiative of GHQ; it included leading representatives from every educational field; and it was unhampered by bureaucratic structures. The Committee was urged to make the fullest use of these special features to conduct independent investigations.

Vice-Minister of Education Yamazaki Kyosuke (1888 - 1963) outlined several important problems of the day's education which demanded immediate solution: 1) youth schools; 2) the period for compulsory education; 3) the system for training teachers; 4) teachers' salaries; 5) guarantees of teachers' status; 6) educational content; 7) reform of the Japanese language; 8) teaching methods; 9) educational administration; 10) educational finance; 11) civil education; 12) health and physical education; 13) science education; and 14) other important problems.

Though the operations of the Committee were performed independently of other Ministries, a Steering Committee was established consisting of the chairman of the Education Reform Committee and representatives from the Ministry of Education and GHQ, to ensure that communication and coordination would be maintained between the three agencies chiefly involved in the process of educational reform. The Education Reform Committee in December, 1946, presented recommendations on 1) matters relating to the concept of education and to the basic law for education; 2) matters concerning the educational system; 3) matters concerning private schools; and 4) matters relating to educational administration. By the time the Committee completed its investigations and submitted a final recommendation concerning the Central Council for Education in November, 1951, it had held 142 general meetings, created 21 special committees, and made recommendations on 35 matters. Each of these recommendations had been enacted into a law or order, and taken as a whole they formed the basis for postwar educational reform. (The Committee was renamed the Education Reform Council (Kyoiku Sasshin Shingikai) in June, 1949, and replaced by the Central Council for Education in June, 1952.)