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Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > JAPANESE GOVERNMENT POLICIES IN EDUCATION,SCIENCE AND CULTURE 1989 > PART1 Chapter2 12

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PART 1 lssues and Perspectives of Elementaryand Secondary Education
Chapter 2. Measures for the Enrichment of Elementary and Secondary Education
12. Improvement and Consolidation of the Textbook System


Elementary, lower secondary and upper secondary schools must use textbooks that have been authorized by the Minister of Education, Science and Culture or those that bear the name of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture as their author.

The textbook authorization system was set up with dual objectives ; it expects the creativity of authors by commissioning the writing and editorship to private publishers, on the one hand, and the assurance of objectivity, fairness and proper educational consideration by means of an authorization by the Minister of Education, Science and Culture. The textbook authorization is carried out fairly and prudently in accordance with the Ministry's Guidelines for Textbook Authorization, and in consultation with the Textbook Authorization Council.

The National Council on Educational Reform recommended that criteria for

authorizing textbooks be carefully selected and simplified and the examining process be simplified, while maintaining the basic principle of the present textbook authorization system that the responsibility for authorization rest with the Minister. Accordingly the Ministry fully revised the Regulations for Textbook Authorization and the Ministry's Guidelines for Textbook Authorization in April 1989. The newly revised system is applicable to the authorization of textbooks edited in accordance with the new Course of Study starting in FY 1990.

Under the system of the free provision of textbooks in compulsory education introduced since 1963, all the pupils attending any school of compulsory education have been provided with all the textbooks of all the subjects with the full cost borne by the government treasury. It is a system in which the government makes direct provisions to the pupils in compulsory education.


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