15 Whitehall office
The Japan Local Government Centre (JLGC) facilitates and coordinates visits to UK local areas based on requests from Japanese local government officials. One of the most frequently requested on-site visits is to local schools. However, as UK local authorities have limited involvement in the actual management of state schools under successive national education reforms, requests from Japanese officials to visit UK local authority schools cannot be fulfilled as a result.
In Japan, education—particularly the condition and performance of local primary, junior high, and high schools—is a major concern for each local government. In some prefectures and large cities, local authorities also operate universities.
Each prefecture and municipality has a Board of Education, which plays a central role in shaping regional education policy. These boards are responsible for establishing and managing public schools, recruiting and training teachers and staff, and allocating school budgets.
To ensure political neutrality in education, Boards of Education are legally structured as independent from the executive branch of local government (i.e. governors or mayors). However, they are not entirely separate. The local head (governor or mayor) appoints board members with the approval of the local assembly. Furthermore, education spending is a significant part of the local budget and a key policy area that any local head must consider.
In practice, governors and mayors are deeply concerned with local education. Education impacts the local economy and social infrastructure, and is of high interest to voters. Consequently, local leaders are motivated to appoint board members who align with their vision for educational policy. However, if their views diverge from those of the local assembly, they may struggle to get appointments approved. For example, in one city, a mayor’s proposed appointment to the school board remained vacant for a year due to lack of assembly consent. In another case two years ago, Japan’s youngest mayor at the time was unable to secure approval for a board member appointment. These examples demonstrate that education is a key area of political interest not only for local executives but also for councils.
It seems unlikely that UK local authorities will regain the control over schools they once held before the academies system, despite the forthcoming Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill granting them powers to open new schools. However, the central role of Japanese local authorities in education elevates it to a more prominent political issue at the local level—perhaps more so than in the UK. Currently, 43.5% of state-funded schools in England are academies, including 81.9% of secondary schools, and most of these belong to academy chains. These schools educate over half of all pupils in England, reflecting a system in which schools are largely independent of local government oversight.
In contrast, Japan retains a predominantly public model of education under strong local government supervision. Fewer than 1% of elementary schools and around 7–8% of junior high schools are private. While private institutions are more common at the senior high school level and dominate higher education, compulsory education in Japan is overwhelmingly delivered by local public schools, which are directly managed by municipal and prefectural Boards of Education.
