The overall educational system was geared to Japanese requirements. . . . The Ministry of Education asserted authority over all schools, including private Japanese and Western mission schools. . . . [T]he Japanese rejected the ideas of democracy and of equality in education. To the Japanese leaders, the purpose of education was . . . to provide competent citizens as a base for a strong state. . . . Education became an instrument of government that existed for the sake of the country and not for that of students. Japan pioneered in authoritarian techniques of using education as a means of political tutelage.
Imperial Japan had a policy similar to that of Nazi Germany. Japan implemented its approach during the historical period leading up to World War II:
Milton W. Meyer, Japan: A Concise History 153-54 (3d ed. 1993).
When Imperial Japan occupied other countries, such as Taiwan, it compelled the subjugated populations to school children in Japanese political thought and language. But after World World II, radical political reformation was achieved under the supervision of General Douglas MacArthur, a home-educated man and one of the most influential military statesmen in United States history.
Today Japan is one of the most democratic, economically prosperous countries in the world. Japanese leaders have been relatively friendly to alternative educators and academics from foreign universities. Not coincidently, Japan also has one of the most respected systems of higher education in the world.
See also Education in National Socialist Germany.
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