It has long been recognized that Japan's educational system is badly in need of reform. Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori repeatedly makes it clear that he agrees. The indications are plentiful: the collapse of classroom discipline in elementary schools; the rising rates of prolonged absenteeism and physical violence, sometimes directed against teachers; bullying in junior and senior high schools and the rise in teenage crime; the lack of any serious interest in studying among many college and university students; and the stresses created by an extreme emphasis on test results and entrance examinations.

This is not, however, as some conservative elements would have it, a verdict of failure on the postwar changes in education instituted in 1947. Those changes were embodied in the new Fundamental Law of Education enacted during the Occupation and were intended to establish Japan as a peaceful and democratic nation. It is true that the 11 articles of the law were basically framed by American Occupation officials, but this was done with input from the Japanese members of a specially appointed Education Reform Council. The new law has largely succeeded in fulfilling its purpose.

The problems facing the country's educational system today do not reflect flaws inherent in the postwar law as much as the changing needs of changing times. Japan today is too different from the Japan of 1947 to want to see a return, as Mr. Mori keeps suggesting, to the "good things" among the rigid principles of the Imperial Rescript on Education issued in 1890, which served as a powerful tool of political indoctrination until it was rescinded at the end of World War II.