Education minister Tatsuo Kawabata on Thursday consulted with the Central Council for Education on whether to continue the teacher license renewal system and whether the teacher training period should be extended.

During last year's election campaign, the Democratic Party of Japan pledged to lengthen the training period to six years, but Kawabata did not include a specific length for the training period on a consultative document.

The consultation focused on establishing a new comprehensive system governing teacher education at universities, as well as their employment and training. The reforms aim to produce qualified kindergarten, primary, middle and high school teachers and to maintain the level of quality throughout their career. Kawabata asked the council to discuss ways a new system would foster teachers, how the licensing system should be organized, how the teacher-training system should function and how schools can effectively work with local boards of education and local communities.

Concerning the length of the teacher training period, the consultative document only mentioned an extension of the current four-year course in principal, saying, "We need to review [the course] to improve its length and contents." The DPJ seems to be backpedaling on the six-year training proposal in the face of public criticism that lengthening the term would only increase burdens on university students hoping to become teachers and reduce the number of aspiring teachers, thus lowering teacher quality.