English EditionNo. 13

July 2015

Problems in Policies for Teacher Education from the Perspective of aPrivate University

Masaki Morita

Professor, Ritsumeikan University
Member of the Advisory Board for the Curriculum Center for Teachers
Reform plans for teacher education have beenpresented in rapid succession in recent years.
Nevertheless, a solid, comprehensive picture of thereforms remains unclear. Universities involved in teacher
education seem to have been in a situation for a long
period during which they have continued to wait in fear
and trepidation awaiting the plan to be proposed next.
It is desirable to conduct active discussions related tobetter teacher education corresponding to changing
times. Thereby, the overall quality of teacher education,including in-service education, can be improved andsophisticated. However, I, who am involved in theoperation of a large-scale teacher training course at a
general private university on a regular basis, often feel
doubt. What do policymakers think about the roles ofprivate universities with achievements in teacher
education? I wonder if they might not understand theactual circumstances of private universities because thelogic of universities and faculties of teacher education isused as the implicit assumption in their debates.
It is also true, of course, that even though it is called
teacher education at private universities, programs
vary, making it diﬃcult to discuss them collectively.
Furthermore, when considering teacher education inbaccalaureate degree programs at a private university,
one sees diﬀerent things depending on whether
thinking centers only upon the education conductedwithin the category of the Educational Personnel
Certiﬁcation Law or whether it includes the abilities
acquired through the overall baccalaureate degreeprogram education. For example, numerous active
learning and Project-Based Learning type lectures,
response to globalization, experience in various
educational programs other than professional
education, and peer support between students beyond
the boundaries of faculties and departments are thepart that is not usually recognized as a so-called teacher
training course (teacher education). However, suchlearning must be playing a salient role in building
capacity as teachers. At the risk of being
misunderstood, I will say that eﬀorts in the domains at
private universities might be more advanced. Theorganic linkage of these many diﬀerent kinds oflearning and learning in teacher training courses canproduce teachers with diverse capacities. It might be
the role of private universities and the strong point.
As many have pointed out, the tightening of
regulations at the entrance, course approval, haslimitations as the quality assurance of teacher
education. Furthermore, it can take away the room tochallenge teacher education reform independently andautonomously from particularly private universities withlarge-scale teacher training courses that are unable to“adapt quickly to new circumstances.” In that sense, too,“Research Project on the Evaluation and Developmentof Teacher Education,” which is currently being
examined mainly by Tokyo Gakugei University, wasstarted last year. I am looking forward to the coming ofan era in which various ways of teacher education onwhich each university works are shared through peer
review from a wide perspective, irrespective of whether
they are national, public, or private universities.
Teachers bear a heavy burden by assuming
responsibility for the future of children. The cultivationof teachers capable of responding to school educationin the new era will be a pressing issue. Therefore, it goes
without saying that universities involved in teacher
education must improve and reﬁne the quality ofteacher education through constant eﬀort, whether
they are private universities or national university
corporations. Recent teacher education reforms that
advocate the radical overhaul of post-war teacher
education are still halfway through. It will take sometime to implement all the reform plans. Nevertheless, nomatter what the reform, if private universities have adecreased educational ability of teacher education as aresult, then teacher education in Japan as a whole might
move the vector in a negative direction. It is certainly
true that this is the era in which the attitudes of private
universities toward teacher education must be called
into question. Even so, I hope that they will be thepolicies for teacher education that satisfactorily added
the situation of “sites” at private universities for those
universities addressing teacher education to be able towork toward teacher education, demonstrating their
distinctive characteristics.

Backgrounds and Characteristics of the Establishment of“Educational Support Course” in Tokyo Gakugei UniversityKeiji Matsuda

Professor/Advisor to the President, Tokyo Gakugei University

Tokyo Gakugei University reorganized theeducational system in 2015. Speciﬁcally, the liberalarts program consisting of ﬁve courses was abolishedand instead “Educational Support Course” was newly
established. Here, I would like to introduce thebackgrounds and characteristics brieﬂy.
In recent years, “the networking of education” isdeveloping in places of elementary and secondary
education. For example, educational issues arebecoming increasingly diverse and complex, which
has brought to schools various educational
supporters other than teachers, such as school
counselors, school social workers, learning support
assistants, and support assistants for ICT, foreign
language education, and sports. Furthermore, widely
various volunteer personnel have come to schools
from local communities and business enterprises.
Furthermore, educational policies designed to spreadthe movement of “Team Gakko (school)” (Inquiry tothe Central Council for Education, 2014), by which
various people, mainly teachers, and organizations
form networks and educate children. This trend will bestrengthened increasingly in the future not only by
so-called “pull” factors such as the increasing busynessof teachers and the social environment surrounding
schools, but also by “push” factors in the sense of new
development of educational guidance in the middleof which the acquisition of key competency and 21
century skills is becoming a global issue.
However, this situation is nothing less than a sort ofparadigm shift for universities that take on thefunction of teacher education. Conventional teacher
training universities and faculties have believed that itis “teachers” who support schools as public educationand have considered the professional ability of the“teachers” on the assumption of a “solo approach (thatis, “You only become a full-ﬂedged teacher when you
can do everything by yourself.”)”. For that reason, thetraining of educators involved in schools is ﬁrst andforemost the training of teachers. Emphasis is
assigned to fostering “a teacher who can doeverything independently.” However, in the presentday, when the “networking of education” describedabove is developing, what we are being asked for isthe conversion to a state in which we grasp theprofessional ability of teachers on the assumption of a“team approach” i.e. “It is only natural to work throughcooperation and collaboration.” It is also to trainteachers to have “capabilities as a team member” andmembers who are engaged in education for children
using their specialization responding to widely
various educational issues in collaboration withteachers.
Also in this sense, simultaneously, we should notthink exclusively about school education as educationthat is conducted at a “school” as a facility (of course,
study outside of school has existed); it is also
necessary to understand schools and local
communities or homes in continuity and to reimagine
school education as education that guides andsupports children and students to study using various

social resources independently. For such a trend of
education, I think that if we do not train new types ofteachers and educational supporters with full of
coordination ability, then universities as higher
education institutions cannot respond to or guidesocial needs for human resources development.
Reorganization of the education system in Tokyo
Gakugei University is an eﬀort that includes awarenessof issues as backgrounds.
As explained above, the educational support coursethat aims foster “educational supporters who formteams with teachers” has seven courses (see Table 1).
The composition of the courses is the result of an
examination of social needs, constellation of an actualcareer, employment situation, and further seeds ofuniversities, and also shows the domains of“professional competence” required for educational
support personnel. Additionally, we assign importanceto the cultivation of “coordinating ability” as thecapacity of human resources common to all courses.
Table 1 Courses in Educational Support Course
Lifelong Learning Course
Social Work Course
Information Education CourseLifelong Sports Course
Counseling Course
Multicultural Education Course
Expression Education Course

From that perspective, the curriculum of theeducational support course has “EducationalCollaboration
Seminar”,“EducationalNetworkSeminar”, and “Educational Management Seminar” inwhich students of the teacher training course jointly
study, in parallel with practical training in the ﬁeld foreach course. It aims at making students learn theeﬀectiveness of responding to widely various issues ina collaborative manner from the undergraduate stage
and have a high level of practical skills there. This is ofcourse adopted in other programs. Particularly,
Project-Based Learning aimed at studentsʼ activelearning is expected to be developed.
We aim to lead reorganization to the developmentof human resources embracing “independence andcollaborative ability” and fostering creativity by
students who aim to be teachers and who aim to be
educational support personnel by studying through ateam approach, interacting mutually from theundergraduate stage.
*This article was reprinted from “Kyoiku no sogodaigaku toshite
do koseika o hakaruka ― ʻKyoiku keiʼ ʻKyoyo keiʼ kara ʻGakkokyoiku keiʼ ʻKyoiku shien keiʼ e: Soshiki saihen no haikei tokaikaku no jissai ―” (published in SYNAPSE, vol.44, April, 2015)
after substantial modiﬁcations.

Roles of International Consortium for Universities of Educationin Eastern Asia
Takeshi Fujii

Vice President, Tokyo Gakugei University
Details of the International Consortium forUniversities of Education in eastern Asia can be found in“Higashiajia Teki Kyoshi” No Ima published by Tokyo
Gakugei University Press in 2015. The activities havecontinued for nearly a decade, since 2006, when theterm “consortium” was not yet used in the name, to thepresent. During that period, I have been involved since2013, which means that I am, so to speak, a newcomer.
Consequently, while asking you to read the book fordetails, this presentation can express what I havethought after my two years of involvement.
First, I think that it is signiﬁcant that presidents ofuniversities in eastern Asian countries and regions
involved in teacher education come to gather every
year and exchange information, and that researchers
from those universities present their research results.
Teacher education cannot simply be comparedbecause it has both national and global aspects.
However, the most fundamental theme is common:
What do we think about childrenʼs education and its
implementation? Actually listening to the talks, I foundthat educators in these countries and regions facecontemporary educational issues and that they havelargely similar problems. The question of what teachers
we need to develop for the issues has much incommon, which was of help to me. The consortium has
functioned realistically as a framework to exchangesuch information.
However, with regard to research, it has leftsomething to be desired. At the symposium, somepresentations have emphasized only the beneﬁts of
their attempts. I saw some cases in which questions andanswers did not correspond well and made discussion

Terminology ofTeacher Education
Subject Specialty

The term refers to the group of “subjects related to school
subjects” speciﬁed in the appended table under Article 5 of
the Education Personnel Certiﬁcation Act as well as university
faculty staﬀs and educational organizations that are in
charge of them. In universities and faculties with teacher
training courses, it is commonly used, as in “professors ofsubject specialty.” However, the usage cannot work inuniversities in general that obtained approved courses forteacher education other than that. University professors whoare in charge of law or economics at the faculty of law oreconomics that obtained approved course for lower
secondary school social studies are not usually called“professors of subject specialty.” Nonetheless, even jurists oreconomists are positioned as “professors of subject specialtyof social studies” in faculties with teacher training courses.
Because the correspondence relationships vary among
disciplines and subjects, the positioning of the “subjectspecialty” is complicated. The group of “subject specialty”
and teachers in charge are particularly needed on a large
scale in wide-ranging subjects such as social studies, sciences
and home economics. In fact, those of “subject specialities”
reached about 70% of the ﬁxed number of teachers before
reorganization of the national universities as independentadministrative institutions in 2004. Therefore, the result has
been the added phenomenon that although it is a faculty ofeducation, pedagogists became the minority. (YasuyukiIwata)

and answers did notcorrespond well andmadediscussion
diﬃcult to advance. In
addition, it appeared, onsome occasions, that
there might be excellent
researchers for the given
themes at universities
not participating in theconsortium. Taking up
theresearchpresentation only, I thinkthat the consortium still
hasroomforimprovement.
Although the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology terminated the specialexpenditure which was the basis of the consortium in 2014,
the consortium itself is to be continued in the direction ofextending its scope from eastern Asia to whole Asia. Evenso, in my opinion, it should emphasize “eastern Asia” a littlemore. That is true because common characteristics ofeducation and teachers in the region, eastern Asia, have notnecessarily been clariﬁed yet. Personally, I am interested inwhether there is an eastern Asian view of educationequivalent to the view of education in the Christian culturalsphere. Additionally, it is diﬃcult to say that speciﬁc
educational circumstances in each country and region ineastern Asia have been understood in detail. I think thatInternational Consortium for Universities of Education in“Eastern” Asia has not met its whole roles yet, and it should
be oriented toward “whole Asia” after understanding them.

Introduction of Advisory
Board Members
This year, we received guidance andadvice from the following external
members of the Advisory Board forresearch activities of the Center.
● FUKUSHIMA, Hirotoshi(Associate Professor, Hirosaki University)● ISAKA, Shuichi(Chief of Education Service Department,Kanagawa Prefectural Education Center)● MORITA, Masaki(Professor, Ritsumeikan University)● OTA, Keiko(Principal of Kokubunji City Daigo
Elementary School)● TAKANO, Kazuko(Professor, Meiji University)Sites Where Teachers
Are NurturedKanagawa Prefectural Education Center
Shuichi Isaka

Chief of Education Service Department, Kanagawa Prefectural
Education Center
Member of the Advisory Board for the Curriculum Center for Teachers

To realize the philosophy of “Kanagawa EducationVision” (adopted by Kanagawa Prefectural Board ofEducation in August 2007)”, the Kanagawa Prefectural
Education Center has been engaged in current educationof teaching staﬀ based on the “Basic Plan for Securing andDeveloping Teaching Staﬀ Resources” (made by the sameboard in October 2007). The center has regarded thefollowing as its three pillars: (1) Development of excellent
human resources for education; (2) Implementation ofinvestigation and research to support schools; and (3)Implementation of educational consultations responding
to the needs of residents and schools of the prefecture.
With respect to the development of human resources, wedeﬁne educatorsʼ “First Career Stage” as the ﬁrst 10 years
in education. We provide training for beginners and foreducators with one year, two years, and ﬁve- years ofexperience. Additionally, we conduct complete basic
mandatory training for educators with 10 years, 15 years,and 25 years of experience, deﬁning the 11th year andthereafter as the “Career Up Stage.”
In Kanagawa Prefecture, the early development ofyounger and mid-career teachers and the continuation of
educational ability are urgent issues that must beaddressed in this era of mass retirement and mass
employment.
For that reason, particularly in training for the “FirstCareer Stage,” we position the three-year period after
employment as the period dedicated to the development of young teachers. As such, we are devoting a great
deal of eﬀort to the following practical training:
1) “Visit to another school of the same education level”
and “Visits to another school of the diﬀerenteducation level”
Course participants from prefectural schools visit
another high school and a neighboring elementary or junior high school.
2) “School visit support” in the training for educatorswith one year of experience
Supervisors visit schools of all course participants,

providing guidance and advice.
3) “Visits to another school of a diﬀerent type” intraining for educators with two years of experience
To promote inclusive education, course participantsfrom prefectural high schools visit a special needs
school, whereas those from special needs schools
visit a high school.
In addition, in the “Career Up Stage” training, we aremaking eﬀorts to promote organizational collaboration
across grades and subjects by all course participants
conducting “practical research.” The research was
conducted for participants to help them solve problems
in their own schools by informing their schools of theirﬁndings.
In response to new educational issues, since this year
we have been striving to improve management
capabilities in a systematic manner from the training for
beginning teachers to the training for newly appointedprincipals based on the perspective of organizational
management in schools. Furthermore, in addition todealing with contents pertaining to “inclusive education”
in all basic training, we are undertaking eﬀorts to enhance
the knowledge and skills in “Use of Information andCommunication Technology (ICT),” which supports
educational guidance aimed at the development of theabilities to think, judge, and express oneself
independently.
Additionally, for head teachers, who constitute the coreof school administration, we have implemented
mandatory training that targets the newly appointed
management and head teachers. This year, the“Vice-principal Candidate Training Course” has been
newly established to support their performance in posts
after they are promoted. Moreover, as training courses(elective training) for self-improvement of teachingability, we provide 58 courses covering various contents
including teaching ability, skills for supporting students,and special needs education skills.
Moreover, we are striving to secure and develop
excellent human resources in education byimplementing the “Training Course for Educational
Consultation Coordinators”, which is a mandatory
training to develop human resources who will constitutethe core of special needs education in schools,“Kanagawa Teachersʼ College” for would-be teachers andthe pre-employment training: “Fresh Teachersʼ Camp.”
Considering the change of the educational
environment with respect to timeliness and the directionof the government, we are currently examining
additional practical training systems, methods, andcontents.

Events Calendar▽Monday, September 7, 2015
Special Lecture “The Gift of a Commercial-Free Childhood”
Susan Linn, Ed.D. (Harvard Medical School)▽Saturday, November 21, 2015
Workshop for Practicing Teacher Education▽Sunday, December 13, 2015
The 16th Annual Symposium“21st Century Academic Ability and the Role of Teachers”
Staﬀ of Curriculum Center for Teachers
Director
OTAKE, Midori(Professor, Home Economics Education)
Center Researchers[Division of Curriculum Research and Development]
KANEKO, Mariko(Associate Professor, Educational Sociology)[Division of Teacher Preparation Research and Development]
IWATA, Yasuyuki(Professor, Historical Studies on Teacher Training)
UESUGI, Yoshimi(Associate Professor, Media Education)[Division of Research and Development for In-Service Teachers]
MAEHARA, Kenji(Professor, Educational Administration)

編集・発行
The CCT is produced by the Curriculum Center for Teachers,
東京学芸大学教員養成カリキュラム開発研究センター
Tokyo Gakugei University.
編集協力
Editor: Yoshimi Uesugi
東京学芸大学／美術・書道講座／青山司研究室／青山司／大浦恵実

Designer: Tsukasa Aoyama and Emi Oura

＊ご不要の方はその旨を以下の連絡先にお知らせください。
(Aoyama Lab., Calligraphy and Arts, Tokyo Gakugei University)

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