Nagoya’s education board has set a bad example for young people by failing to comply with moral standards.

The Nagoya Municipal Board of Education was found to have informally accepted recommendation lists from teacher organizations for school leadership positions, often accompanied by money and other gifts. The ethical lapse has undermined public trust in education.

An interim report by an external investigation team set up by the city has revealed ethical problems regarding promotions to positions such as principal, assistant principal and chief of academic affairs.

The school staffing division of the education board, which is responsible for such appointments, received recommendation lists under the table annually from about 90 teacher groups, including principals' associations, subject study groups and university alumni associations.

Money and gift certificates with values ranging from 5,000 yen ($33) to 60,000 yen were also received along with these lists, a practice that has continued for more than 20 years in some cases.

The total value of gifts received by the board reached 13 million yen over the last seven years, for which records exist.

The money was used for snacks, lunches, taxi fares, parties to celebrate the completion of specific projects and executive meetings, among other things.

While no egregious cases of inappropriate individuals being promoted into principal roles have been discovered, a thorough investigation is necessary nonetheless.

The lists of recommended candidates were managed separately from the money, with the lists often containing five times the number of available positions. A board official in charge of the matter claims the lists were “not referred to” when making appointments.

Why, then, did they continue this opaque practice for so long? The municipal government's employee ethics ordinance requires employees to report any receipt of money from an outside party valued at 5,000 yen or more.

Members of the board violated this rule by failing to report the monetary or other gifts from teacher organizations.

It has also been revealed that the board allowed former senior board members to preview and comment on school executive appointments before they were made public.

This suggests complacency and lax discipline, with the people involved apparently assuming that minor infractions among insiders were permissible.

Personnel at the board’s staffing section in charge of personnel decisions are all transferred from teaching positions. Many of those who provided the recommendation lists, such as principals, returned to schools after a stint with the board, and many teachers come from local teacher training universities.

Some former principals described their monetary gifts as “encouragement." They seem to have viewed such gifts as secret--and innocuous--transactions among insiders.

Can the board effectively oversee schools while engaging in such a dubious practice? The board is a unique entity within local government since it is vital to ensure educational expertise and political neutrality. It has independent authority that even the mayor cannot easily intervene in. However, the reality has been disappointing.

The board has weighty responsibilities because of its mission of ensuring diverse learning opportunities for all children. It faces a formidable challenge of addressing the exhaustion of teachers and the decline in the number of applicants for the job. 

Effective initiatives to rejuvenate schools by employing people with various life experiences, including civilian principals, are urgently required.

It is imperative to start reforming the system with a review of the composition of the board's members. If administrative burdens are indeed overwhelmingly too heavy as to warrant sympathy, those too should be addressed.

It's worth questioning whether other boards of education have similar “customs.”

Multiple boards of education across the nation accept similar lists of recommended candidates for school executive positions as “reference materials.”

Local governments and the education ministry need to make sweeping reviews of the process of school executive appointments to see whether there are any gift-giving practices involved or whether there are any unfair aspects.

--The Asahi Shimbun, April 2