A Research On The Change Of Japan’s Primary And Secondary School Teachers’ Qualification System

Teachers’ qualification system is an important subject in the field of teacher education research, and also a hot issue in education reform practice. From the historical process of teachers’ qualification system development, the research of teachers’ qualification system, is essentially the study of the change of teachers’ qualification system. As our neighbor separated only by a strip of water and as one of the world’s major developed countries, Japan takes the leading position in the aspect of the education development level in the world. Teacher education is the mother ship of the education development and figures prominently in the Japanese education reform. Teachers’ qualification system, as an important part of teacher education system, plays an important role in guaranteeing teachers’ quality and promoting the development of education. Taking teachers’ qualification system as the research subject, this dissertation aims to study the change of teachers’ qualification system in Japan and provide reference for China’s teachers’ qualification system reform and development.In this paper, with changes of Japanese teachers’ qualification system as the core issue and effectiveness of teachers’ qualification system as the institutional change hypothesis, the development, main features, implementation effect and underlying causes of system effectiveness of Japanese teachers’ qualification system in different periods after Meiji Restoration will be clarified. It is difficult to grasp the changing process of Japanese teachers’ qualification system profoundly which has a history of over a hundred years. However, it will be more effective if an appropriate analytic framework can be built. As teachers’ qualification system being an important part of both the education system and the political system, therefore, political analysis logic on system research can be applied in the analysis of the formation, development and change of teachers’ qualification system. This paper draws on thinking logic of New Institutional Politics on the methodological level. New Institutional Politics, as a recent political research focus on the system, has abundant theories and practices. Its contents contain historical institutionalism, rational choice institutionalism and sociological institutionalism, and one of its core issues is the study on the relation between system and stakeholders in specific circumstance, namely the effectiveness of the system.We should take new system doctrine political science as the research methodology, and teachers’ qualification system as the clue of the analysis. Meanwhile, analyzing the change process of teachers’ qualification system can’t achieve success without laws and regulations, policy documents, consulting reports of all kinds of review conferences and other related literature of different periods and so forth. Therefore the research emphasizes the importance of literature review analysis method. In addition, this paper strives to analyze the change process of teachers’ qualification system according to the chronological order and the fact of teachers’ qualification system, so historical method is another important one of this research. It is necessary to respect the historical fact of teachers’ qualification system to avoid optional and subjective analysis of it. At the same time, in order to make the historical research on the teachers’ qualification system not just the surface of the historical phenomenon, this paper should put it into the framework of new system doctrine political science all the time while it is giving an insight into the validity cause of teachers’ qualification system.The thesis consists of three parts: introduction, main body which contains five chapters and the conclusion. The first part is a general introduction to the question, significance, present situation and method of the research. Chapter One, based on the theory of effectiveness of the new institutional politics, analyzes the transition of Japanese teachers’ qualification system, confirming the feasibility of the applied theory and laying the methodology foundation for further research. Chapter Two, based on the analysis of key policies prevalent from Meiji Restoration to the end of World War II, is aimed at approaching the evolution process, against the backdrop of educational centralization, of the system of Japanese teachers’ qualification in primary and secondary school. Chapter Three explains the post-war reconstruction and advancement of the system till the late 1960 s. Chapter Four analyzes the evolution process of the system from the early 1970 s to 2006, and it further explores, with the rapid economic recovery and pursuit of a political power, the new trend of teachers’ qualification system internationally and domestically. Chapter Five gives an analysis of the status quo of Japanese teachers’ qualification system since 2007, featuring the compounded school education and effect of lifelong learning trend on teachers; then, it further explores the status quo and problems of the system under the background of education lasting through all life long.Through the analysis of the development of important policies of teachers’ qualification system in Japan, Chapter 2 to Chapter 5, taking the system effectiveness of qualifications for teachers as the clue, discuss the change of teachers’ qualification system in Japan, and investigate Japan’s teachers’ qualification system in the nearly one hundred and fifty years from 1868 to now, which is a very long historical span. The historical stage of Chapter 2 to Chapter 5 is mainly based on the main characteristics of education development of different social background. The first period of Japanese education reform is from the Meiji Reformation to the end of World War II and the national education system of Japan gradually formed and developed in this period. The prominent feature of the development of the educational system in this period is the education centralization. The second period of Japanese education reform is from the end of World War II to the late of the 1960 s, and the democratic education system of Japan established and developed in this period. The main ideology influencing the development of education is the democratization of education in this period. The third period of Japanese education reform is from the1970 s to the early Twenty-first century, and the education of Japan shows the characteristics of internationalization and Promotion of information technology and Lifelong during this period. After 2007, Structural reform education influenced the whole reform of educational system, especially the reform of teacher education. Under this influence, teachers’ qualification system has the maximum change since the establishment of it. The conclusion part is mainly to summarize the characteristics and causes of the development of teachers’ qualification system for primary and secondary school teachers in Japan.