（7）Teacher Training

One of the points emphasized by the Education Reform Committee was that the training of teachers should be placed within the university system. It further recommended that separate teacher training universities or faculties should be established specifically to train elementary and lower secondary school teachers. As a result of these recommendations one of the basic principles of the Ministry of Education in the establishment of the new national university system was that in every prefecture there should be one national university with a faculty or department devoted to teacher training.

An even more fundamental change in the system of teacher training was brought by the enactment of the Law for Licensing Educational Personnel, which was promulgated on May 31, 1949, and put in force on September 1 of that year. The license (menkyojo) of teachers was divided into three categories - regular, temporary, and emergency. The regular teaching license which was further divided into first and second class categories, could be awarded to 1) persons who had completed a specified university course that included specialized education subjects and 2) students of other universities or faculties who had completed the subjects required of regular teachers or passed certification (kentei), in addition to their regular course of study.

In order to upgrade the general quality of the teachers already working within the school system whose number was estimated at approximately 590,000 at that time, the Ministry of Education decided to provide a program of in-service training to extend over a ten-year period beginning in 1950. Changes enacted in this program in 1954 made it possible to complete this valuable retraining program by 1958.