近來在主要國家的教改方案中，有許多與教育的分權改革有關的項目。日本自九○年代起在教育上經由分權運動的推動，將以往中央政府的權限下放至地方層級，在此之中也擴大了學校自主經營的權限。由於原有的教育官僚體制在分權的過程中，因為權力的轉移與利害關係者的參與而產生變化，因此本文主旨乃在於透過對1、日本教育行政制度；2、近期教育分權改革狀況；3、教育官僚制的相關概念；4、互動關係的改變；與5、組織架構的調整，評析日本的教育分權改革與官僚體制的變貌情形，文後並依教育分權的實施現況提出若干討論，做為可供參考之啟示。

Recently, in major economies’ educational reform programs, there have been lots of subjects related to decentralization. Japan shifted power and authority from central government to local government by promoting decentralization in education field from late 1990s, and the autonomy in management was also expanded to school level. Because educational bureaucracy was changed by transferring power and stakeholders’ participation within the processes of decentralization, the main purpose of this article is to analyze Japan’s decentralization reforms and cases of bureaucracy change through five issues, which are 1. the educational administration system; 2. recent decentralization reforms in education; 3. concepts of education bureaucracy; 4. change in relationship between local government and school levels; 5. adjustments in organization structures. In the final part of the paper, some suggestions relevant to Taiwan are made, based on the implementation status of Japan case.