ABSTRACT
In 2004-2005, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and elite bureaucrats from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) accomplished a historic decentralization of the education budget. They also initiated a structural education reform boom. In 2006-2007, Education Ministry bureaucrats and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Education Rebuilding Council took advantage of the window of opportunity opened by Koizumi. They tightened curricular and personnel authority by reinstating a National Assessment of Academic Achievement, replacing lifetime teaching licenses with renewable licenses, and creating an external school evaluation system.
