The appointment of an Ad Hoc Reform Council, or Rinkyoshin, on 21 August 1984 was a logical culmination to a lengthy period of concern in Japan over a set of widely perceived educational problems and the future prospects for Japanese education. The charge given to the council by Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone was clear: "to consider basic strategies for necessary reforms ... so as to secure such education as will be compatible with the social changes and cultural developments of our country." The prime minister went on to remind council members that "if our nation is to build up a society that is full of vitality and creativity as well as relevant to the 21st century, it is a matter of great urgency to design necessary reforms." 1 As the deadline for the Ad Hoc Council's final policy recommen dations draws closer, several things are clear. Whatever the council ul timately recommends, it will be the subject of intense interest and comment both within Japan and abroad. In addition, the problems that the rec ommendations are designed to alleviate are not recent ones but have their roots in earlier phases of Japan's postwar educational development. Fi nally, this systematic attempt to institute fundamental educational re forms is not a new phenomenon in Japan. Indeed, major attempts to implement basic educational reforms occurred in the 1870s and again following World War II. In the first instance the reform movement was initiated by the new Meiji government, in reaction to a perceived external threat, as a means of building a modern state as quickly as possible, while in the latter case the reforms were imposed by a powerful occu
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