Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > Japanese Government Policies in Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology 2001 >Capter1 Section2

The fundamental policy that runs through the ongoing education system is to build a "lifelong learning society" that allows people to freely pursue learning opportunities throughout their lives and for the results of this learning to be adequately evaluated. The construction of a "lifelong learning society" has also been presented by the National Council on Educational Reform as one of the fundamental policies of educational reform. Internationally, as demonstrated in the Cologne Charter - Aims and Ambitions for Lifelong Learning, adopted at the Cologne Summit in 1999, and in the Chair's Summary of the G8 Education Ministers' Meeting in 2000, major industrialized countries have recognized efforts toward the construction of a "lifelong learning society" as their common challenge at a time when the world is being transformed from a traditional industrial society to a knowledge-based society.

There is a pressing need to address the critical situation in which Japan's education system now finds itself. The National Commission on Educational Reform, which was established under the Prime Minister for broad-based discussion on the modality of future education in Japan, had numerous sessions of its plenary meeting and three subgroups since the Commission's establishment in March 2000. These meetings led to the submission of the Report by the National Commission on Educational Reform - 17 Proposals for Changing Education on 22 December 2000. The Commission laid out two basic principles that should be followed in considering reform proposals contained in its report: {1} standardization in education should be broken down, individual talents should be encouraged to grow and a back-to-basics approach should be adopted in examining school education and educational administration; and {2} specific movements should be created to achieve reform. The Commission then set forth its 17 proposals, emphasizing the particular importance of three standpoints: {1} realizing education that fosters Japanese with rich humanity; {2} realizing an educational system that lets individual abilities grow and fosters Japanese with rich creativity; and {3} building new schools befitting the new times and realizing a support system for that goal.

The basic line of thinking within all the above-mentioned points of view on educational reform is intended to expand and deepen the basic direction proposed by the National Council on Educational Reform, such as the "principle of respect for individuality," "shift to a lifelong learning system" and "responses to the changes, including internationalization and informatization." The Educational Reform Plan in the 21^st Century is also intended to promote "structural reform of education" to reform the whole educational system and make it more responsive to the expectations and requests of the people and keenly alert to social changes, through the "promotion of decentralization," "enhancement of information disclosure and accountability" and "promotion of appropriate evaluation."