<Individual Paper>Consideration and Evaluation of the Views of Governors and Mayors on the Reform of the Board of Education System : Report on a Survey of Govemors and Mayors

This paper reports the result of a survey on the views of govemors and mayors regarding the Board of Education system. This survey was conducted in August-September 2004. Its results are as follows.// First, several mayors and governors agreed that the Board of Education should continue. A few mayors insisted that the Board of Education should be abolished and that mayors should directly control educational administration; however, there were few govemors and mayors who agreed to this abolition.// Second, with regard to educational policy, many governors and mayors felt that the influence of the central governlnent (Or in the case of local authorities, the prefectural government) is stronger than that of the general administration. They felt that public administration of the educational policy is compartmentalized. However, if the educational policy is compartmentalized, it remains to be seen whether it is a result of the Board of Education system.// Third, mid-sized cities, having a population of approximately 30,000-100,000, have distinctive features as compared with small and large cities. For example, With respect to both general and educational policies, the mayor\u27s influence is stronger in mid-sized cities. The scale of the government (in other words, population) is an important variable when local (educational) policy is analyzed; however, the effect of this variable is not linear.// Although this paper introduces the results of this survey, it does not make or test any hypothesis, This aspect relⅥains to be studied