EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM & PRACTICE IN JAPAN

34	“V Classroom Management and Guidance”	Previous	Next	JAPANESE

	As a result of increases in serious negative behavior by students (delinquency, violence, bullying, suicide, non-attendance at school.), it became necessary to provide students with ‘education for sound mental development.’ To deal with these problems, counselors’ began to be deployed to schools as ‘specialists in mental soundness’ by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Between 1995 to 2000, such counselors were deployed to a limited number of schools financed by MEXT that wanted to assess the use of counselors and the resulting impacts. Supported by grants from the government, the project has expanded to prefectures and designated cities. By the middle of 1998, counselors of ‘education for mental soundness’ were deployed to lower secondary schools lacking school counselors to relieve pressures and stress upon students by providing them with opportunities to talk about their distress without constraints.