SCAP philosophy regarded a reformed educational system as vital for Japan to become a democratic nation.
Traditional Japanese methods were nearly opposite to that of the United States: control of schools was highly centralized and rote memorization of textbooks without much interaction described the standard student-teacher relationship, and the study texts were described as boring.
Much of the reform was focused on conditioning students to more readily accept democratic, liberal and egalitarian ideals, directly competing with the prevailing hierarchical structures deeply ingrained in every level of Japanese society, from family life to government institutions.
The use of kanji script was overhauled and greatly simplified, eliminating all but 1,850 more commonly used characters, referred to as the tōyō kanjihyō.
[3] Initially, before the Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT) and Allied command's Civil Information and Education Section (CI&E) produced new textbooks to replace them, narratives in existing Japanese textbooks found to extol feudalistic, nationalistic, militaristic, authoritarian, State Shinto-religious, or anti-American views were censored during class by students through a process of suminuri-kyōkasho, or "blackening-over textbooks" with ink, under orders of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP).
The CIE's objective was to eliminate practices that contradicted the tenets of democracy and employ democratic models.
Some of the CIE's main reforms include the 6-3-3-4 school ladder,[5] core curriculum, the program of tests and policies, graduation requirements, collaborative style of learning, and a new course in social studies.
The position was militarism and ultra-nationalism (promoting Japanese cultural unity) must not be a segment of school curriculum.
[9] Various transitional measures were taken to alleviate the turmoil caused by the major changes in the school system due to academic reform.
Graduates were admitted to those surviving Middle schools (ja) or chuto gakko (中等学校) under former system.
Daigaku yoka (大学予科) along with Kyusei kotogakko had been established as the primary higher education for those who would continue to universities.
For students, those who had studied for the full four years' term and qualify as kyusei chugakko (旧制中学校) graduates in 1947 were offered two options.
Universities established administered by the new system held special examinations for those graduates of past academic years as transfer students.
In 1949 (Showa 24), under the academic system reform, the qualification for admission to the medical and dental departments became "a person who has completed two years of college and who meets specific requirements (in defined subjects and credits)".
The four-year university which had established the “Science Department” made a two-years' preparatory courses, called Rigakubu otsu (理学部乙), or the “Preparatory Course, Science Department”, especially for medical and dental students: requirements of two-year university graduates were hence cleared.