This week ISIL President Ken Schoolland joined a discussion—alongside Sean Matsumoto of Japan’s Happy Science Academy—hosted by Think Tech Hawaii about education in Japan. You can skip to 29m 27s for this part of the discussion. Government control of education is nothing new to most in the world, but Japan is exceptional in the extent to which the government gets involved in regulating the subject matter that is taught.
“Mr. Matsumoto discusses his efforts to connect religious philosophy with the free market and the defense of liberty in the face of a Japanese education system that leans toward Marxist and left-wing ideology.” While Ken argues that the government control of both the economy and education in Japan has contributed to the drastic decline of both. In the 80’s, Ken spent 5 years teaching at university level in northern Japan, and he published the book Shogun’s Ghost: The Dark Side of Japanese Education in 1990.
Prior to Ken’s portion of the show was an interview with Dr. Hiroshi Yoshida, who spoke both at our Shanghai conference in 2012 and Lausanne Conference in 2013 about the state of the Japanese economy and his campaign to “Open Taxpayer’s Eyes” on behalf of the Japanese for Tax Reform.