Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > Japanese Government Policies in Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology 2001 >Introduction Section3.2

After the 46 Report pointed out the necessity to improve the content and methods of education, the curriculum was revised in the decade following 1975 with the purpose of realizing a "comfortable and enriching school life." The previous curriculum tried to improve and enrich education content to keep abreast of the progress in science, industry and culture, thereby helping Japanese students to achieve a high level of academic ability by international standards. On the other hand, it was pointed out that the previous curriculum resulted in a quantitative increase in the content of learning and also higher-than-necessary levels of learning requirements. The revisions to the Courses of Study in 1977 and 1978 were made in order to improve the above-mentioned situation. The revised Courses of Study carefully selected education content and shortened class hours with the purpose of rectifying the school situation that tended to focus on the transmission of knowledge and bringing up children who could think, judge and act on their own.

  At upper secondary schools, drastic flexibility was introduced into the curriculum, including a reduction in the number of compulsory subject credits to about one-third of the total number of credits required for graduation.