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"Educational Standards in Japan" is hereby published for the fourth time in sequence to previous editions of 1959, 1964 and 1970, respectively.

"Educational Standards in Japan," published three times in the past, was designed to clarify the prevailing state and problems of education in Japan, through comparison with several selected countries, with major emphasis on school education, in regard to such aspects as the extent of its spread, educational contents and methods, educational personnel, educational expenditures and so forth.

This time as well, while the policy of evaluating the transition and present state of education in Japan, with emphasis on school education, has been followed with a view to maintaining consistency with the past three counterpart publications, a new approach, aimed at clarifying the problems confronted by Japan, has also been made by adding materials viewed from a number of new angles, taking recent developments into account.

First, in consideration of the fact that the rapid advancement of Japanese society and economy since the 1960s has reached a turning point, efforts have been made to furnish the materials considered necessary in thinking about future educational problems, by tracing comprehensively the quantitative expansion of school education during this period.

Second, instead of being satisfied with observing from a national viewpoint the process of quantitative expansion of school education in the past, prefectural comparison on the actual state of school education has been made, in consideration of the need to clarify the extent of discrepancy in each region, thereby signalling first step toward this type of analytical study in the future.

Third, while it has been observed, on the one hand, how the employment structure of school graduates and social assessment of educational background have changed in line with the spread of school education and the rise in the standard of the educational background of the Japanese people, attention has been called, on the other, to the important role that has come to be played by educational activities other than school education in meeting the people's educational demands for the future.

This report, compiled by incorporating these new approaches, is made up of the Introduction and the First through Sixth Chapters. The principal contents of the Introduction and each chapter include the following:

In the Introduction, a general survey is made, with a view to grasping the whole picture of school education macroscopically, of the size and transition of educational population, educational personnel, school buildings and school education expenditures.

In Chapter 1, the change in the population receiving school education and expanding process of the educational opportunity are followed for each level of education.

In Chapter 2, while the system, contents, methods, etc., under which school educational activities have been developed, are presented on the one hand, the moves for their reform and the problems involved therein are clarified on the other.

In Chapter 3, consideration is given to the system and realities governing educational personnel in school education in relation to their status, working conditions, training, in-service training and so on.

Chapter 4 clarifies the extent to which the size of schools and the standards of their facilities and equipment as a place of actual education have changed as a result of the change in the population receiving school education and development of various educational measures.

In Chapter 5, the transition in educational expenditures supporting educational activities is dealt with, in regard to the size, breakdown and sources of those expenditures, on the one hand, while consideration is given to the growth trend of educational expenditures on the other.

In Chapter 6, with a view to observing education in relation to society, attention is given first to the rise in the standard of the educational background of the Japanese people and the change in their employment structure, and in the social assessment of educational background. Next, several educational activities other than school education were also presented, in consideration of the need to make effective use of various educational functions in society, such as social and home education, etc. as well as school education, for the purpose of coping with the expansion and diversification of their educational demands.