ABSTRACT
Japanese education is now at the center of a heated debate on reform. The discourse itself is nothing new. Since World War II there has never been a time when calls for change have not been voiced. The current round of debate, however, which got underway in the latter half of the 1980s, differs markedly from earlier ones in three important ways: The need for reform is no longer a point of contention, agreement has been reached on the direction reform should take, and the debate has begun to be coupled with real action. The party platforms for the October 1996 House of Representatives election provide a clear indication of this change. The policy objectives of all parties except the Japanese Communist Party included deregulation of education and gave impetus to Ministry of Education reform initiatives, which since the mid-1980s have been grounded in the concepts of liberalization, individuality, and diversity.
