FY2003 White Paper on Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology [1.2.3]

Part 1 Higher Education to Support a Knowledge-Based Society Full of Creative Vitality - New Developments in Higher Education Reform

In order that universities may better fulfill their important role of "knowledge creation and its inheritance," it is necessary for them to actively make their own reforms in response to academic developments and social changes and needs. Furthermore, based on the flow of regulatory reform from ex-ante regulations to ex-post-facto checks, a review of the form of national government participation in universities is required.

Given this background, in the August 2002 Central Council for Education Report, "Building a New System to Secure the Quality of Universities," the following recommendations were made as policies to secure the future quality of universities based on the development of academic fields, rapid changes in society, and the state of efforts directed towards university evaluation in foreign countries.

1) Greatly increase flexibility for the approval system for establishing new departments, which is a system of ex-ante regulation by the national government, in order that universities are able to proceed with their own active organizational restructuring and so on.
2) Develop a structure under which a third-party evaluator carries out ongoing and objective evaluation of the state of education and research activities after a university has been established, and secure the quality of universities as a whole system, including after establishment.
3) Introduce staged corrective measures imposed on universities that are in breach of the law.

In response to this report, MEXT amended the School Education Law in November 2002, and the following system reform was carried out ( Figure 1-2-14 ).


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