ABSTRACT
In the immediate postwar years, the American authorities under Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) sought to decentralize the educational system and weaken the nearly total control over the education system that the Ministry of Education had exercised since the Meiji years. In 1989, 13.7 percent of the national administrative expenditures in Japan were devoted to education. Japanese students attend school 5.5 days a week and 240 days a year, compared to 180 days in the United States. Despite the post-World War II liberalization of the educational system, the age-old practice of enforcing rules rigidly and instituting Spartan discipline in the students prevails. After having crammed and worked continuously in order to enter college, the Japanese youth finally enters college—and the studying virtually comes to a standstill. Radical student activism was undoubtedly fired up by student activism in Europe and in the United States.
