New lifelong learning law in Japan: promise or threat?

Education has always been a subject of great controversy in Japan. To it is attributed much of the blame for the events leading to World War Two. After the war the Occupation authorities were determined to liberalise education, and inter alia effected legislation about the education of adults. Tokyo has always sought to diminish the local control which is the essence of this legislation, and this article discusses a particularly significant attempt to do so.