How Japanese education boards frame teacher education as a training, learning, and policy problem

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology recommended the implementation of Kyoshi-juku by local Education Boards. Kyoshi-juku provide teacher preparation curricula, classroom observational experiences, and specific information about working in local school contexts as a supplement to the preparation curriculum and clinical experiences offered through higher education. We describe the content and implementation of these new programmes and clarify the rationale or intention for offering this new form of teacher preparation in Japan. Through document analysis, we found 36 Kyoshi-juku currently implemented in Japan. We surveyed 120 Education Boards (response rate 35%, N = 42) and interviewed nine Education Officers about Kyoshi-juku implementation. We found that programmes vary in their structure yet are quite similar in how they address teacher learning in the local context. Two main reasons for implementation were interpreted through the mixed-methods approach combining qualitative and quantitative data: teacher recruitment and how teachers learn practical teaching skills in local contexts. Using the teacher preparation problem frames of 1) training problem, 2) learning problem, and 3) policy problem, we argue that local stakeholders used all three problem frames simultaneously to explain how and why this new policy and programmes have taken shape at this moment in Japan. We argue that multiple lenses on problem framing reveal the complexity of policy decisions and programme design in teacher education.