Maru-gō

Maru-gō is the highest qualification of teaching staff in the Graduate schools of Japan, including Research associates, assistant professors, Lecturers, Associate professors and professors. There are 6 ranks, namely D-maru-gō, D-gō, D-ka, M-maru-gō, M-gō and M-ka in master's course and doctor's course of graduate schools of Japan. The former three are the qualifications for teaching staff in doctor's course (D is the abbreviation of "D"octor). The latter three are the qualifications for teaching staff in master's course (M is the abbreviation of "M"aster). Needless to say, D-maru-gō is the highest rank. D-gō is the 2nd, M-maru-gō is the 3rd, M-gō is the 4th.^[1] D-ka and M-ka are to be described below.

The deliberation or screening of these qualifications is performed by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) only when doctor's or master's program is to be established (absolutely required) or reorganized (required only in the case that MEXT judged necessary). But the deliberation or screening is not performed when staff is promoted, new staff is recruited or the request for deliberation or screening is individually made. There is no examination‐on‐demand system. The official qualification is given only by MEXT. The qualification given by each University is just self-styled and not official. The result of the deliberation or screening is notified through each University by MEXT. The staff to be examined must prepare huge amounts of documents. Even if the staff who submitted his/her documents to be examined by MEXT is declared "Unqualified", there is no explanation in detail and re-examination request is not admitted. The staff to be examined is given only one chance.^[2]。

D-maru-gō staff is officially qualified both to supervise PhD students and give lectures in the doctor's course. D-gō is officially qualified both to assist in supervising PhD students and give lectures in the doctor's course. M-maru-gō staff is officially qualified both to supervise Master's students and give lectures in the master's course. M-gō is officially qualified both to assist in supervising Master's students and give lectures in master's course. Jun Nishikawa (:ja:) shows that in Joetsu University of Education where he teaches only a few staff have D-maru-gō.^[3] In the Universities, namely super disparity society, those who reign at the top of the hierarchy of Research associates, assistant professors, Lecturers, Associate professors and professors are the above-mentioned D-maru-gō professors.^[4] It is said that D-maru-gō staff in the fields of liberal arts, Social sciences, humanities and so on other than science hold tremendous authority in Japanese universities.^[4]

How about the ratio of M-maru-gō？　In 2000, Prof. Yasuhiko Torii (:ja:), as a committee member of the 34th Justice System Reform Council held on October 6, pointed out that Japanese universities which then intended to establish new Law schools officially introduced by the Government of Japan in 2004 as a Japanese educational system^[5] had to gather excellent law-teaching staff at the same time across Japan who seemed to be given M-maru-gō qualification with high probability not to be late for the start of new "Law School System" in 2004, that M-maru-gō staff would be considerably narrowed down even if there were more than 90 universities which had law faculty then and that as a result the number of new Law schools would be also narrowed down.^[1]

D-ka staff and M-ka staff who are qualified only to give lectures in graduate school usually are professors of other universities, lawyers, certified public accountants, media-related editorial writers, commentators, newscasters, those who experienced local government chiefs and so on.^[6]

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