ABSTRACT
The history of teacher education in Japan, in the professional sense of the term, dates to the early years of the Meiji Period. The recognition by the Meiji leaders that widespread formal educational opportunities would be necessary for the nation's development highlighted the need for a modern mechanism to train teachers. The Ministry of Education was given the authority to establish a school for this purpose, and in July 1872, began to recruit students for the new normal school. The Tokyo Normal School, Japan's first teacher education institution opened its doors to 54 students in October 1872. In 1948, the American authorities introduced an Institute for Educational Leadership (IFEL) Program, staffed by a wide variety of Japanese specialists and a number of American experts imported to broaden the perspectives of Japanese teachers. The Ad Hoc Reform Council appears to have been little concerned with the need for teachers to be "internationalized" if they are going to produce "internationalized" citizens.
