This article tracks the transition in the central government’s (Ministry of Education, MEXT) privateschool subsidies to higher education and elementary and secondary education. To document the transition, this paper focuses on time series data on government subsidies and loan to private schools from the “National Budget (Kuni-no-yosan)” and “Government Subsidies List (Hojokin-Soran)”.
Three points became clear from the analysis. First, Councils at the government level, such as Ad Hoc Council on Education and the Ad Hoc Commission on Administrative Reform, have a large influence on budget decisions related to operating expenses, equipment expenses and facility expenses.
Second, the identity of the chartering agency of the private schools has an effect on the subsidy items and budget amount. Thus, for example, since MEXT is the chartering agency for the private universities while the prefectural governor charters high-schools, MEXT’s behavior in budget decisions is different between universities and high-schools. Policies and aids for private elementary and secondary schools are decided by prefectural governors, and MEXT’s role is to provide ad hoc assistance to prefectures on unusually expensive, large scale projects, such as constructing school facility during a period of rapid student enrollment growth.
Third, a turning point for government subventions occured in 1971, shifting to subsidy-based aid from loan-based aid. Reports from the Ad-hoc Council on the Private Schools have proposed increasing the total amount of government subsidies and beginning to aid teachers’ salaries. Following this report, the ratio between subsidies and loan has changed drastically.