The Reserch On The Decentralized System And The Educational Administration Of Japan

This thesis will demonstrate how the decentralized system of Japan has been established,the origin and key factors,the existing problems and the future development direction of the current system.Besides,this thesis seeks to research the problems regarding the educational administration of Japan,exploring the future development of the decentralization.So far,it has been regarded that the decentralized system of Japan has several problems.Some experts think that the responsibility of the central government and local governments has not been drawn clearly,and the local governments have not fully run the autonomy.The educational administration of Japan has applied the decentralized system,which means the central government and the local governments has its own educational administration power.That is to say,the state has the power to formulate the framework of the educational administration and the local governments shall determine the specific contents and other details of the educational programs in its jurisdiction.However,the biggest problem is that the distinction of the function played by the central government and the local governments is not quite clear.For the administrative system of compulsory education,Japan has mainly emulated the United States after the Second World War,to strengthen the power of the local governments.After getting out of the control from the United States,to boost the economic development,Japan has come to value the function played by the central government.Since the late 1990 s,the educational administration of Japan has refocused on the function played by the local governments.The change of such dominant ideology has affected the educational administration,leading to the several revisions to the relevant laws and the cases' interpretations so far.Local Educational Administration Law has been amended to a great extent in 2014 and the influence made by the local government on the educational administration has been expanded.However,this amendment also has problems and the biggest problem is that the “independence of the politics” has been weakened.Besides,there comes the problem that some local governments may have financial deficitThe writer proposes that for fully running the decentralized educational administration,it is necessary to make clear the responsibility scope of the local governments and to strengthen the power of them.Therefore,for solving the above problems,the writer believes that the future educational administration shall pay attention to: “popularization”,“residents' participation” and “rationalization”.