To ensure quality education all over the country is the ultimate goal for all countries.
However, a problem lies here. Real quality education probably means not uniform education but
the best education which varies from student to student, from school to school, and from area to
area. Even though we take the stance of “the greatest happiness for the greatest number”, time is
always moving and factors such as individuals and society are fluid and so it is not an easy task
to find an optimum solution, if not the best. And the above expression unconsciously seeks for a
teacher who is like a craftsman of fine arts, who is able to respond to such fluid and individual
situations and find the optimum solution or approximation to such solution. And furthermore, in
order to ensure this over the country, it is necessary to produce such craftsmen in massive
quantity.
Let us review quality education briefly. In the economically advanced countries, quality
education, especially the quality of teachers is the focus. In 1974, the Ministry of Education,
Japan and OECD-CERI jointly hosted an International Seminar on Curriculum Development in
Tokyo. In the seminar, a new paradigm was proposed by the term Rashoumon Approach, which
emphasized more on impromptu-ness and multi-facets of teaching, and teacher education was
given more emphasis in that paradigm. In the USA after the U.S. National Commission on
Excellence in Education (1983), public awareness about education was raised. Stigler et. Al.
(1999) pointed out that quality of teaching influence quality of learning and lesson study and
action research (Sagor, 2000) may be employed to improve it. These movements reflect a
fundamental shift of the teacher’s role and profession.