Education Law: our issue this Sunday

A bill to revise the Education Law made it down to the floor of the Diet last week, and the LDP looks set to push it through by the end of next month. The bill has three basic goals:

  1. Take the 9-year compulsory education period out of the law (it’s already provided for in another law, and may be revised in the near future anyway)
  2. Add provisions for life education, private schools, and home schooling.
  3. Make instilling patriotism one of the formal goals of the education system.

The last point is what has held up the rest of the bill in committee, since some fear that too much nationalism would be a Bad Thing. The language that finally made it to the floor is 我が国と郷土を愛する態度を養う – “instill an attitude of love of our country and homeland.” Even if the few remaining left-wingers in the Diet don’t have problems with that, you can bet that a lot of the teachers will, especially in the major cities where schools are dominated by more “liberal” (in the American sense) types. Should be fun to watch the bickering.