Fourth Report Summary of Discussion

May 28, 2009

Meeting on Education Rebuilding

Contents ◇Fourth Report — Summary of Discussions — Points I. Realization of “Society Ensuring Educational Opportunities” — Enhancing “Social Security at Early Stages of Life” — [Creation of a society where all children can receive anxiety-free education] [Impact of economic disparity on education] [Enhancement of “Social Security at Early Stages of Life”] [Restoration of people’s trust in school education] (1) Establishing measures to reduce guardians’ financial burden of educational expenses (2) Enhancing pre-school education (3) Establishing public education that can win guardians’ trust (4) Enhancing assistance for children and young people with disabilities II. Globalization of education and fostering of technologists full of creativity [Human resources development as a national strategy] [Realization of internationally appreciated education] [Creation of internationally open universities] (1) Fostering human resources who can work abroad (2) Promoting attractive science and mathematics education (3) Realizing internationally open universities (4) Fostering young researchers full of creativity III. Japan as a “Sports Oriented Nation” (1) Implementing comprehensive sports promotion measures (2) Promoting national sports

Fourth Report – Summary of Discussions –

May 28, 2009

Meeting on Education Rebuilding

[Points] I. Realization of “Society Ensuring Educational Opportunities” — Enhancing “Social Security at Early

Stages of Life” — 1. Basic concept ○ In order to realize a society where people can live in peace, it is indispensable to create a society where

all children can receive anxiety-free education. ○ In reality, educational expenses (in particular those for preschool education and higher education) are

mainly incurred personally in Japan, and income levels of individual families often have significant influence on children’s courses of study and educational opportunities (fixation and reproduction of disparity).

○ It is necessary to enhance education and reduce the financial burden of educational expenses on households, while regarding education as “social security at early stages of life” and an investment in future growth, with a view to realizing Japan’s future development and coping with the declining birthrate.

○ Education rebuilding should be further promoted from the stage of compiling a “vision” to the stage of actually implementing the plan, to restore people’s trust in school education so that parents and guardians can send their children to local schools and children can surely acquire “the ability to read, write and calculate, and a good command of English.”

○ Efforts should be made by society as a whole, while ensuring stable funding necessary for realizing a “Society Ensuring Educational Opportunities.”

2. Concrete measures (1) Establishing measures to reduce the financial burden of educational expenses on guardians ・Financial assistance to families, including enhancement of aid for encouraging kindergarten enrollment,

should be promoted, with a view to an early realization of free pre-school education. ・Study assistance for elementary and lower secondary school students should be enhanced and a new

framework of study assistance, including financial resources, should be discussed so as to prevent any disparity caused by differences in local governments’ financial conditions.

・Measures to reduce or waive tuition fees or provide scholarships for financially-troubled upper secondary school students should be enhanced and the creation of a new benefit-type educational assistance system (study support for upper secondary school students) needs to be considered in line with the former assistance.

・In order to significantly reduce the burden of tuition fees for higher education, efforts should be made to enhance measures to reduce or waive tuition fees and develop a benefit-type scholarship, while further expanding public assistance.

(2) Enhancing pre-school education ・Educational functions in early childhood should be reinforced, strengthening collaboration with

elementary schools and improving joint training and assessment of kindergartens and daycare centers.

・In order to achieve the goal of accrediting 2,000 centres for early childhood education and care at an early date, it is necessary to promote more flexible accreditation and assistance based on the “Fund for Child-Rearing.”

(3) Establishing public education that can win guardians’ confidence ・A favorable educational environment should be developed through improving teacher quality and

enhancing textbooks and teaching materials, so that children can surely acquire “the ability to read, write, and calculate, and a good command of English,” with a view to having them attain world-leading academic levels.

・The fixed number of educational personnel should be properly adjusted and new staffing levels of teachers and other personnel should be determined prior to the full-fledged introduction of the new Courses of Study.

・A system to support school teachers should be established through such means as deploying specialized personnel and supporting staff.

(4) Enhancing assistance for children and young people with disabilities ・In order to ensure that children with disabilities have opportunities to receive anxiety-free education,

further efforts should be made to enhance teacher quality, build a consistent guidance and assistance system, and strengthen collaboration among related departments and agencies.

II. Globalization of education and fostering of technologists full of creativity 1. Basic concept ○ Amid globalization, human resources development should be promoted as a national strategy in order

for Japan to assume leadership and contribute to world development and strengthen and maintain our international competitiveness.

○ In order to foster internationally appreciated human resources and technologists who lead the next generation, it is important to have children achieve world-leading academic abilities and a good command of English at elementary and lower secondary schools, and to enhance science and mathematics education at an early stage by developing an appropriate science education system at elementary schools or other measures.

○ International liquidity of highly-advanced human resources should be improved through further promotion of student exchange programs for excellent university students and the development of a system to accept researchers and specialists from overseas. Assistance for highly capable graduate students and young researchers should be reinforced, thereby fostering promising young people who can be internationally accepted.

○ Systems to provide assistance and improve the research environment for graduate students and young researchers should be improved from their point of view.

2. Concrete measures (1) Fostering human resources who can work internationally ・In order to enhance foreign language education at elementary schools prior to the introduction of the

new Courses of Study, training for teachers should be carried out systematically, and guidance by ALTs and lower secondary school English teachers and the development and utilization of ICT equipment should be further promoted.

・Native speakers, persons who have lived overseas or have a good command of English, and other external human resources should also be recruited and utilized.

・English education should be reviewed, giving due consideration to the continuity in education at elementary, lower secondary, and upper secondary schools, with a view to having students acquire

certain fluency in daily English conversation by the time they graduate from upper secondary schools. As the foundation of English education, education in the Japanese language, history, and culture should also be enhanced.

・In order to significantly increase the number of young Japanese people (including upper secondary school students) studying abroad, scholarship systems and student dispatch systems should be enhanced.

(2) Promoting attractive science and mathematics education ・A favorable environment for enhancing science and mathematics education should be developed by

improving facilities and equipment for experiments and observations, increasing the number of teachers specialized in science at elementary schools, introducing guidance by lower secondary school science teachers, and enhancing elementary school teachers’ teaching abilities.

・An assistance system for science and mathematics education should be enhanced locally with the cooperation of researchers at universities and private companies.

(3) Realizing internationally open universities ・In order to realize the “300,000 International Students Plan,” an environmental arrangement for

accepting international students should be promoted steadily, by expanding scholarships, stationing special staff for international students and developing their accommodations.

・Efforts should be made to help excellent foreign researchers and specialists come to work in Japan, by stationing special staff, and developing a personnel system, remuneration system and pension system, as well as easing restrictions on family members’ working and improving the environment for their enrolling in schools.

(4) Fostering young researchers full of creativity ・An environment suitable for research should be developed, and financial assistance, such as assistance

for educational and research expenses and enhanced remuneration systems for TAs and RAs, should be promoted so that doctoral candidates can devote themselves to their research activities.

・Systematic course work should be introduced from the students’ standpoint, and a system for dispatching or inviting researchers should be enhanced so as to expand opportunities to experience international academic exchanges.

・Efforts should be made to promote the acceptance of researchers returning from overseas at universities and private companies and to improve their working conditions, as well as to increase the employment of doctoral course graduates and postdoctoral fellows and expand a tenure system for researchers.

・Organizational restructuring of graduate schools should be promoted in accordance with the changes in society, through such means as making schools more open to other domestic and international universities, other fields of study, and international students.

III. Japan as a “Sports Oriented Nation” 1. Basic concept ○ It is indispensable to make Japan a “Sports Oriented Nation” in order to build a bright and rich society

full of energy. ○ It is necessary to promote wide-ranging sports promotion measures, covering fitness exercises, school

sports education (physical education and extracurricular club activities), sports for people with disabilities, local sports, company sports, and top athletes.

○ The national government needs to promote efforts, in collaboration with local governments, sports organizations and private companies, so as to further implement wide-ranging sports promotion measures comprehensively and systematically for the purpose of realizing a “Sports Oriented Nation.”

2. Concrete measures (1) Implementing comprehensive sports promotion measures ・The Basic Act on Sports and a new Basic Plan for the Promotion of Sports should be established. ・The national administrative system for the promotion of sports should be reinforced through such means

as newly establishing the Sports Agency. (2) Promoting national sports ・The National Training Center (NTC) should be further improved and the training of top athletes should

be strengthened by increasing the number of national coaches and raising budgets for overseas expeditions. Assistance for creating second careers for retired athletes should also be enhanced.

・The national government should actively support campaigns to host international athletic games, including the Olympics and Paralympics.

・Assistance should be provided for company sports through such means as establishing a safety-net organization to support athletes and providing preferential tax treatment and financial assistance for company sports that satisfy certain requirements.

・A favorable environment for school sports activities should be developed by enhancing physical education classes and extracurricular club activities, increasing dietary education including school lunch hours, laying lawns on school grounds and building martial arts halls.

・A favorable environment for local sports activities should also be developed by developing local sports facilities and supporting comprehensive community sports clubs.

・Children should be given sufficient opportunity to have nature experiences in their lower grades. Specialists in this field should be fostered and utilized, while teachers’ leadership in nature experiences should be enhanced through training in certificate renewal courses and teacher-training courses.

[Summary of Discussions] I. Realization of “Society Ensuring Educational Opportunities”

—Enhancing “Social Security at Early Stages of Life” — [Creation of a society where all children can receive anxiety-free education]

The very foundation of nation-building is the development of human resources. In order to realize a society where people can live in peace, it is important to develop an environment in which children, who will lead the next generation, can stand at the same starting line and believe in a future in which their efforts to reach their full potential by receiving education will lead to an affluent life.

For such a purpose, it is essential to create a society where all children can receive anxiety-free education without being subject to various restraints in terms of educational opportunities or quality due to individual families' financial conditions.

[Impact of economic disparity on education]

However, in reality, educational expenses incurred personally by each family are much higher in Japan than in other countries. In particular, educational expenses for preschool education and higher education, for which public assistance is not fully available, impose a significant burden on each household to a level that cannot be overlooked. The younger generation with a relatively low income suffers a huge financial burden when providing their children with preschool education at kindergartens or daycare centers. For standard households with children of university age, if two children simultaneously receive university education, the financial burden accounts for nearly one-third of the average household's annual income after subtracting tax and public pension premiums. The financial burden of educational expenses on households has almost reached the limit.

Under such circumstances, many couples choose to have fewer children so as to avoid the huge financial burden of child-rearing and children’s education. High educational expenses have been one of the major causes of the declining birthrate and have brought about a situation where each child’s educational opportunities are affected by his/her parents’ income levels.

Furthermore, with deep-seated distrust in public education remaining in society, disparity among respective families’ financial conditions also causes differences in children’s opportunities for after-school lessons, creating inequality both in the quality and quantity of the education available to them.

During the period of compulsory education, aid for encouraging school enrollment is provided for financially-troubled families, but amid the current tight fiscal situation, such aid differs depending on local government. In addition, due to insufficient financial aid for upper secondary

school students, many are now having difficulties in entering or continuing at schools. Meanwhile, according to the National Assessment of Academic Ability conducted by the

Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, schools with higher rates of children who receive study assistance showed lower percentages of questions answered correctly, compared with other schools with lower recipient rates. This suggests that parents’ financial conditions have begun to affect children’s academic ability.

We need to break the cycle of disparity becoming entrenched and reproduced, whereby economic disparity in the parents’ generation leads to educational disparity in their children’s generation. We must take concrete measures to ensure that all children can have opportunities to receive education, irrespective of their family's circumstances, with hopes in accordance with their motivation and abilities. [Enhancement of “Social Security at Early Stages of Life”]

Education for children, who will lead the next generation, is not only the foundation of realizing a reassuring society; it should also be regarded as an investment in the future growth of Japan. Social security in Japan places more emphasis on elderly people, compared with other countries, and discussions have mainly focused on how to cope with the burden increasing in line with the aging population. However, for Japan’s further development and as countermeasures against the declining birthrate, investment in education for future growth should be increased, regarding education for children as “social security at early stages of life.” Currently, people strongly expect the national government to take action to reduce the financial burden of educational expenses on households, covering pre-school education to higher education. Enhancement of “social security at early stages of life” will, as in Nordic countries, contribute to ensuring equality at the starting line of each person’s life, enhancing the potential of future generations, and strengthening Japan’s high international competitiveness and economic infrastructure. We should remember that Japan’s advancement was brought about by its high-quality education. [Restoration of people’s trust in school education]

In order to realize a “Society Ensuring Educational Opportunities,” children’s education during infancy should be enhanced, along with a reduction of financial burdens. Now is time for us to proceed further from the stage of compiling a “vision” of rebuilding education to the stage of actually implementing the plan, so that parents and guardians can send their children to local schools and children can surely acquire “the ability to read, write and calculate, and a good command of English.”

Last year, the Courses of Study was revised, aiming to restore people’s trust in school education. However, schools are now facing limits in their educational function in coping with various issues, including increasing class hours for enhancing children’s academic abilities and improving guidance for

children with problems, and special needs education. Staffing levels of teachers and other personnel have been reduced under the Act on Promotion of Administrative Reform for Realization of Small and Efficient Government, but teachers and schools are strongly requesting an early improvement of the present staffing levels.

It is indispensable to steadily develop favorable human and physical conditions so as to properly cope with various problems surrounding schools.

Under such circumstances, in order to overcome various problems and realize a “Society Ensuring

Educational Opportunities,” society as a whole needs to promote the following measures, in close collaboration among related parties, including the national and local governments, schools, and local communities, while ensuring stable funding necessary for achieving the goal. (1) Establishing measures to reduce the financial burden of educational expenses on guardians

In order to enhance “social security at early stages of life,” starting from pre-school education to higher education, and create a “Society Ensuring Educational Opportunities,” the financial burden on guardians needs to be reduced with regard to the following points. ○ Financial assistance to families for pre-school education should be promoted by providing

national government support for local governments’ original measures, such as aid for encouraging kindergarten enrollment and free nursery services for children other than first children, with a view to an early realization of free pre-school education.

○ Support should be provided for local governments to enhance study assistance for elementary and lower secondary school students, and a new framework of study assistance, including clarification of division of roles among the national and local governments and securing of financial resources, should be discussed so that differences in local governments’ financial conditions should not cause any disparity in the contents of assistance or any significant deterioration of assistance levels.

○ Considering that nearly 97% of lower secondary school students go on to upper secondary schools, measures to reduce or waive tuition fees or provide scholarships for financially-troubled upper secondary school students should be enhanced. In line with this, the creation of a new benefit-type educational assistance system (study support for upper secondary school students) needs to be deliberated.

○ In order to significantly reduce the burden of tuition fees for higher education, efforts should be

made to enhance measures to reduce or waive tuition fees and develop a benefit-type scholarship, while further expanding public assistance.

(2) Enhancing pre-school education ○ The foundation of education is built by parents and guardians at home when children are infants.

Efforts should be made to reinforce education skills in the household by such means as holding lectures to enhance parents’ leadership and preparing a home-visit counseling system. Assistance for child-rearing parents should be properly provided for respective families, according to their circumstances as to whether both parents are working or the mother is a full-time homemaker.

○ Educational functions in early childhood should be reinforced through kindergartens, daycare centers, and centres for early childhood education and care, so that all children can receive high-quality education in groups in their childhood. At the same time, an educational environment should be developed to ensure steady implementation of the revised Courses of Study for Kindergartens and Guidelines for Nursery Care at Day Nurseries.

○ In order to firmly cultivate the foundation for post–elementary school education in early childhood, collaboration between elementary schools and kindergartens, daycare centers, and centres for early childhood education and care needs to be strengthened in respective local communities so as to ensure continuity in children’s learning.

○ From the viewpoint of enhancing the quality of pre-school education, systematic training to improve nurse quality should be introduced and assistance should be provided to help nurses receive such training. Furthermore, boards of education, departments in charge of private schools, and departments in charge of welfare should jointly hold training sessions, targeting teachers and nurses at kindergartens, daycare centers, and centres for early childhood education and care.

○ Efforts should be strengthened for conducting better self-assessment and related parties’ assessment of kindergartens, daycare centers, and centres for early childhood education and care, with a view to improve the quality of pre-school education.

○ In order to ensure pre-school education for all children, the numbers of daycare centers and

centres for early childhood education and care need to be increased, aiming to eliminate waiting children, including potential needs.

○ For early achievement of the goal of accrediting 2,000 centres for early childhood education and

care, more flexible accreditation should be promoted in accordance with respective communities’ circumstances, and approval of daycare centers and kindergartens should be accelerated actively. Assistance based on the “Fund for Child-Rearing” needs to be enhanced by giving due consideration to actual circumstances by region and to streamlining procedures to eliminate dual administration.

(3) Establishing public education that can win guardians’ trust ○ A favorable educational environment should be developed promptly by improving teachers’

quality through enhanced teacher training, improving and increasing textbooks, fully preparing teaching materials and books, and establishing a proper school management system, so that children can surely acquire “the ability to read, write, and calculate, and a good command of English,” with a view to having them attain world-leading academic levels.

○ The fixed number of educational personnel should be properly adjusted and new staffing levels

of teachers and other personnel should be determined based on an accurate understanding of the present teachers’ working conditions, prior to the full-fledged introduction of the new Courses of Study, so as to enhance the quality of education according to individual students’ needs and allow teachers to have enough time to face each student.

○ Specialists such as school counselors and school social workers should be sufficiently deployed

to resolve difficult school problems regarding student guidance. ○ A system to support school teachers should be established for all schools through such means as

deploying specialized coordinators and other supporting staff for promoting collaboration in local communities, and utilizing outside personnel, with a view to rebuilding public education in cooperation with society as a whole.

○ In order to ensure spaces for all children to play and study without anxiety after school at their

request, the “After-school Plan for Children” should be further promoted. Under this plan, opportunities to receive catch-up lessons in line with the content of school learning should be prepared so that children can surely acquire academic abilities without going to cram schools.

○ With decentralization being promoted also in the field of education, the development of the

educational environment is, in most part, dependent on decisions by local governments, which are establishers of public schools. However, measures need to be taken to promote local governments’ further investment in education so that an educational environment above a certain common level should be ensured all over Japan, especially at compulsory education stages.

○ From the viewpoint of ensuring systematic continuity of children’s growth and learning,

collaboration among schools should be enhanced between kindergartens or daycare centers and elementary schools; elementary schools and lower secondary schools; and lower secondary schools and upper secondary schools. In particular, in order to cope with such problems as changes and diversification of children’s physical and mental growth, “freshman gap” (maladjustment to drastic changes accompanying a move from an elementary school to a lower secondary school), and lowering of academic ability, necessary measures should be taken promptly to support unified elementary and lower secondary school education, which has already been adopted in some municipalities and has shown certain achievements, by clarifying its legal position in the framework of compulsory education schools and introducing a subject-based teacher assignment system from upper grades of elementary schools.

○ In order to enhance education so that it meets social demands, efforts for enhancing career

education and vocational education need to be promoted by such means as reviewing the contents and system of education to promote career education in an organized and systematic manner, from elementary schools to upper secondary schools, in accordance with children’s growth levels, and by comprehensively fostering future leaders of industries based on local needs.

○ The national and local governments should develop a comprehensive support system,

combining education, welfare, and employment, for children and young people who suffer from various difficulties, such as child abuse, bullying or truancy, or problems related to NEETs (young people Not in Education, Employment or Training), hikikomori (acute social withdrawal) or young unemployed people.

○ In order to establish reliable public education, it is indispensable for boards of education, which

are responsible for public education in their respective communities, to play their expected roles sufficiently to win the full trust of local residents. At present, deliberations have been carried out at the established working group on the relationship between governors and mayors and boards of education in local educational administration, measures to strengthen their collaboration, and appropriate methods to appoint board members and superintendents. Such efforts should be continued to promptly compile measures to improve the situation, based on related parties’ opinions and the situation of the enforcement of the Act on the Organization and Operation of Local Educational Administration, which was revised in response to reports of the Education Rebuilding Council.

○ Providing education to children so as to enable them to acquire necessary abilities and act properly as sovereign members of society and the nation is an extremely important role for public education. Therefore, a working group was established to discuss future sovereign education. Discussions should be continued to promptly compile concrete measures, such as through hearing opinions of related parties.

(4) Enhancing assistance for children and young people with disabilities ○ In order to ensure that children with disabilities have opportunities to receive anxiety-free

education, further efforts should be made to enhance teachers’ quality through increasing occasions to deepen their understanding on special needs education at lectures, in certificate renewal courses, in-service training, and teacher-training courses at universities.

○ School systems concerning special needs education should be developed in kindergartens,

daycare centers, elementary schools, lower secondary schools, and upper secondary schools by ensuring the deployment of special needs education coordinators and enhancing their quality, clarifying the position of special needs education, and promoting deployment of supporting staff. At the same time, connection and collaboration needs to be strengthened among kindergartens, daycare centers, elementary schools, lower secondary schools, upper secondary schools, and schools for special needs education to build a consistent guidance and assistance system covering from early childhood up to graduation from school.

○ Collaboration between boards of education, departments in charge of welfare, and departments

in charge of labor should be reinforced. By establishing support teams consisting of specialists and specialized organizations in the field of medical care, welfare and labor in each region, and strengthening assistance for schools, a consistent assistance system should be built, covering from early childhood up to graduation from school and including assistance for families and for living in local communities.

○ In order to respond to an increase of students with disabilities, school facilities and equipment

for special needs education should be developed for ensuring a better educational environment. At the same time, at the upper secondary school section, education aiming for students’ vocational independence needs to be enhanced by increasing vocational courses and deploying employment coordinators. Furthermore, the framework of an urgent job creation fund should be expanded to create jobs at schools for persons with disabilities.

○ Through the entirety of educational activities, including moral education classes, efforts should

be promoted to deepen understanding of children with disabilities.

II. Globalization of education and fostering of technologists full of creativity

[Human resources development as a national strategy]

The 21st century is characterized as a knowledge-based society with borderless advancement of new knowledge, information, and technology backed by scientific technologies, and as a global society where not only economic activities but also various threatening problems concerning the environment, energy, and infectious diseases spread globally across borders.

In a globalized society, human resources development should be promoted as a national strategy in order for Japan to assume leadership in resolving global issues to contribute to world development and continue developing in various fields to strengthen and maintain Japan's international competitiveness. The national government is required to present a strategy on how to foster internationally accepted human resources and technologists full of creativity who have wide-ranging knowledge and flexible intelligence.

[Realization of internationally appreciated education]

In order to foster internationally accepted human resources, it is important to have children acquire world-leading academic abilities, and at the same time to train them to have a good command of English so that they can utilize English as a tool without feeling any language barrier. The ability to speak English will not only help children with their future work and stays in foreign countries but will also serve as the base for them to understand different cultures and act confidently in the international community. The Meeting on Education Rebuilding has made recommendations to strengthen English education fundamentally, and the new Courses of Study introduced foreign language activities from the fifth grade of elementary schools. However, such activities have just been started and the results will depend on each elementary school’s future efforts and the contents of English education provided at upper schools based thereon.

Higher educational institutions should make efforts to foster excellent graduate students and young researchers with expertise, while providing them with opportunities to experience different environments and cultures outside school, such as at foreign universities, instead of only devoting themselves in education and research in a closed environment. Providing students with such experience so they can be inspired intellectually and enhancing their creativity is extremely significant for the development of internationally appreciated human resources. However, in recent years, as the educational and research environment in Japan has improved, less and less Japanese students and researchers have gone overseas. It is a concern that Japanese young people are apt to be inward-looking rather than to feel prompted to go out into the international community.

In order to foster technologists who lead the next generation, it is also important to enhance

science and mathematics education, the very foundation of science and technology literacy, from the early stages of elementary and lower secondary school education, from the viewpoint of ensuring universal acceptance of such education. At the upper secondary school level, it is necessary to bring out each student’s willingness and potential concerning scientific technologies as much as possible by letting them receive a basic introduction to sophisticated academic knowledge. However, at present, schools face lots of problems in carrying out experiment and observation activities due to insufficient facilities, equipment and preparation time. The fact that many elementary school teachers lack confidence in teaching science is also an obstacle, as the class-based teacher assignment system is generally adopted at elementary schools. [Creation of internationally open universities]

Amid globalization, it is necessary to foster internationally appreciated young human resources, with a view to enhancing the liquidity of superior human resources across borders by further promoting international exchanges of excellent university students and other promising individuals, and developing a system to accept researchers and specialists from overseas, as well as improving assistance for excellent graduate students and young researchers. For that purpose, it is essential to realize the “300,000 International Students Plan,” which was established in July 2008 and is scheduled to be achieved by 2020. Considering the present level of approximately 120,000, strategic efforts are to be further promoted for the achievement of the plan. In the meantime, the number of Japanese students studying abroad has been leveling-off in recent years. If left to the judgment of the individual, the situation will never improve. The current Japanese research and living environment fails to attract excellent researchers and other superior human resources from abroad. It is necessary to arrange a favorable environment to draw intelligent people from all over the world to Japan.

The Meeting on Education Rebuilding, as well as the Education Rebuilding Council, has made various recommendations on reforms of universities and graduate schools, but the recommendations have not sufficiently been implemented so far. In order to encourage young researchers to be enthusiastic in their research and fully exercise their ability, reforms from the standpoint of graduate students and young researchers are important. However, an ideal system, assistance or research environment from such a perspective has yet to be developed. If nothing is done, young intelligent Japanese may flow out from Japan.

Keeping such circumstances in mind, the national government and universities should share a

sense of crisis and a sense of responsibility stemming from concerns that Japan may possibly be left behind the international knowledge-based society, and they should promote the following measures so as to make up for the insufficiencies of past efforts.

(1) Fostering human resources who can work abroad

○ Aiming to have children attain world-leading academic levels, environment arrangements should be steadily promoted by increasing staffing levels of teachers and other personnel and developing facilities, equipment, and teaching materials, in preparation for the smooth introduction of the new Courses of Study, which advocates enhancement of educational contents and an increase of class hours.

○ In order to enhance foreign language education at elementary schools prior to the full-fledged

introduction of the new Courses of Study from FY2011, training for all elementary school teachers should be carried out systematically, and guidance by ALTs and lower secondary school English teachers, and development and utilization of ICT equipment, such as electronic blackboards that can assist vocal lessons, should further be promoted.

○ Persons who have lived overseas or have a good command of English, native speakers, and

other external human resources should also be recruited and utilized. For that purpose, local school support centers and other bodies should be utilized to develop human resource agencies for assisting foreign language activities in local communities and deploying coordinators for actively utilizing external human resources.

○ Based on recommendations by the Education Rebuilding Council, foreign language activities at

elementary schools and English education at lower secondary schools and onward have been introduced and enhanced in response to the revision to the Courses of Study. The Meeting on Education Rebuilding has also recommended that English education should be compulsory as early as the third grade of elementary schools. Closely watching how English education is actually carried out in the future, review should be made on the contents and methods of English education, with due consideration given to continuity in education at elementary, lower secondary, and upper secondary schools, from the viewpoint of having students acquire a certain fluency in daily English conversation by the time they graduate from upper secondary schools.

○ Aiming to foster internationally accepted Japanese people, education in the Japanese language,

history, and culture should also be enhanced as the basis thereof. ○ Responding to the increase in the number of foreign students in need of Japanese language

instruction due to the globalization of the international community, public schools should develop a system to accept such students smoothly, enhance language instruction therefor, and promote education to deepen global understanding as well.

○ In order to significantly increase the number of Japanese young people, including upper

secondary school students, studying abroad, scholarship systems and student dispatch systems should be enhanced.

(2) Promoting attractive science and mathematics education ○ A favorable environment for enhancing science and mathematics education should be developed

by improving facilities and equipment for experiments and observations, increasing the number of teachers specialized in science at elementary schools, and introducing guidance by lower secondary school science teachers for elementary schools, so as to prepare for the steady introduction of the new Courses of Study, which aim for the enhancement of science and mathematics education.

○ Elementary school teachers’ abilities to teach scientific subjects should be enhanced by

increasing experiment and observation activities in teacher-training courses, in-service training, and training in certificate renewal courses. At the same time, recruitment exams and methods should be reviewed and preferable treatment should be given to persons good at science and mathematics during recruitment as elementary school teachers. Universities that have teacher-training courses should be well equipped with facilities and equipment for experiments and practical training.

○ An assistance system for science and mathematics education should be enhanced locally in

strengthened collaboration with local universities and private companies, by establishing human resource agencies consisting of in-service researchers, retired researchers, doctoral candidates who can provide cooperation in school science classes, dispatching lecturers to teachers’ training sessions, and preparing attractive teaching materials that can arouse children’s interest.

○ In order to foster creative technologists from the upper secondary school level, assistance for

super science high schools (SSH) should be expanded and continued. Efforts for promoting advanced placement (AP) in upper secondary schools should also be supported with the cooperation of universities, so that promising students can receive highly-advanced university-level science education at an earlier stage.

○ Universities that aim to become a global-level education and research hub with the national

government’s assistance are required to make positive efforts toward fostering excellent technologists through such means as actively utilizing a system of early entry to accept upper secondary school students who have achieved significant results in the International Science Olympiad and other similar academic competitions.

(3) Realizing internationally open universities ○ In order to achieve the “300,000 International Students Plan,” which was established based on

the Meeting’s report, environmental arrangement for accepting international students should be promoted steadily, by expanding scholarships, stationing special staff for international students at universities, and developing dormitories that can be shared by multiple universities and where Japanese students and international students can live together.

○ Efforts should be made to help excellent foreign researchers and specialists come to work in

Japan, by stationing special staff, developing a personnel system, remuneration system and pension system at universities. Furthermore, special care should be taken to ease restrictions on their family member’s taking jobs, provide preferential treatment for their visas, and prepare international schools to ensure a better environment for their children’s enrollments.

(4) Fostering young researchers full of creativity ○ An environment suitable for research where doctoral candidates can devote themselves to their

research activities should be developed with enhanced assistance for educational and research expenses. Furthermore, financial assistance, including better remuneration systems for TAs and RAs and prompt provision of scholarships, should be promoted so that excellent human resources can proceed to higher education and concentrate on education and research free from financial burdens.

○ In order to drastically enhance the quality of graduate school education from the students’

standpoint, the introduction of systematic course work that meets global levels and examinations to assess graduate students’ expertise and research abilities should be promoted.

○ A system for dispatching or inviting researchers should be enhanced so as to ensure that young

researchers have chances to act globally and have active interactions and thereby expand opportunities to experience international academic exchanges. Funds for exchanges should be fully prepared at each university for flexible responses.

○ Efforts should be made to promote the acceptance of students and young researchers returning

from overseas at universities and private companies and to improve their treatment, so that they can have suitable positions in accordance with their respective abilities.

○ In order to increase employment opportunities for doctoral course graduates and postdoctoral

fellows, recruitment and working conditions at private companies should be improved and a tenure system for researchers should be expanded for higher liquidity of human resources.

Furthermore, human resources development and exchanges should be promoted jointly by the industry and universities.

○ In order to make graduate schools more open to students from other domestic and international

universities, other fields of study, and other countries, student selection methods and the time of enrollment should be reviewed. Graduate schools should present specific numerical goals, such as setting limits of students from the same university or the same field of study at around 30%, and the minimum percentage of international students at 20%. They should also promote efforts for such reforms as providing assistance to students from other universities.

○ Fundamental reforms of graduate schools should be promoted by eliminating old-fashioned

apprenticeships with professors at the top, reorganizing graduate schools as an educational system independent of faculties, and breaking down the wall of present graduate departments and majors to restructure them into more rational and flexible organization in accordance with the changes in society.

○ Universities that promote world-leading research with the national government’s assistance

should take, as their responsibility, the initiative in developing an internationally appreciated education and research environment in various aspects, through such means as inviting the world’s top researchers from overseas, increasing special support staff for acquiring superior international students, and ensuring sufficient research spaces for fostering young researchers.

III. Japan as a “Sports Oriented Nation”

Sports enhance individuals’ physical strength and improve health and make people’s lives more

enjoyable and affluent. The success of national team members in international athletics games always gives people dreams, emotion and energy. It is indispensable to make Japan a “Sports Oriented Nation” in order to build a bright and rich society full of energy.

Therefore, it is necessary to promote wide-ranging sports promotion measures, covering the enhancement of fitness exercises from infancy to old age, and physical education and extracurricular club activities as a part of school education, the promotion of sports for people with disabilities, the development of surrounding sports environment to foster comprehensive community sports clubs, support for company sports, and the training of top athletes who can represent Japan and participate in major international competitions, including the Olympic Games.

However, children nowadays have fewer opportunities to train themselves in their daily life, due to urbanization and the declining birthrate. Their physical strength is generally much lower than that of their parents. Furthermore, schools have become smaller along with the decline in the number of children and some schools have difficulty in securing enough leaders for various extracurricular club activities, while their teachers are becoming older. Many of the comprehensive community sports clubs that have been established recently are financially vulnerable, and not many can carry out their activities with their own funds. Company sports are mostly dependent on the economy, and many teams have been abolished or have suspended their activities since last autumn due to the global economic crisis. As for the Olympic Games, the results of Japanese national team members do not match the level of Japan’s national power. If nothing is done, it will be impossible to make Japan a “Sports Oriented Nation.”

In order to break out of the current situation and carry out diversified sports promotion measures more comprehensively and systematically for the purpose of realizing a “Sports Oriented Nation,” the national government needs to promote the following measures together with local governments, sports organizations and private companies. (1) Implementing comprehensive sports promotion measures ○ In order to make Japan a “Sports Oriented Nation,” the Basic Act on Sports should be

established by clarifying roles that the national and local governments are required to play. ○ A new Basic Plan for the Promotion of Sports needs to be made from the viewpoint of

promoting national sports comprehensively and systematically, including the promotion of company sports and sports for people with disabilities, as well as the enhancement of physical strength and good health of people from their infancy to old age, the promotion of local sports,

and the improvement of competitiveness in international games. ○ For the establishment of a new Basic Plan for the Promotion of Sports and the steady

implementation thereof, the national administrative system for the promotion of sports should be reinforced through such means as newly establishing the Sports Agency

(2) Promoting national sports ○ The National Training Center (NTC) should be further improved and the training of top athletes

should be strengthened by increasing the number of national coaches and raising budgets for overseas expeditions. Assistance necessary for training national team members needs to be increased to the same level as that of the countries that obtain large numbers of Olympic medals and thereby ensure an environment where top athletes can concentrate on training to acquire world-level competitiveness. The national government should also make efforts to detect young athletes who show strong potential, provide them instruction and training under a comprehensive program, and enhance financial assistance for superior athletes, in cooperation with local governments and sports associations.

○ Assistance for creating second careers for retired athletes should also be enhanced by collecting

and providing information on fields where retired athletes can make good use of their experience, by such means as working as an external instructor for extracurricular club activities or as a sports disseminator, and by increasing career education opportunities from the early stage with a long-term perspective, including working life after retirement.

○ Companies should give due consideration to the aspect of company sports as a social

contribution, not only to their effects to improve the respective companies’ images, and should endeavor to continue sports activities irrespective of short-term trends of the economy. They should also become actively involved in local social contribution activities through such means as providing coaching to children in local communities. The national government should, considering the significant roles that company sports have played in enhancing athletes’ competitiveness and promoting sports activities in respective regions, compile measures to support company sports by establishing a safety-net organization to support athletes and provide preferential tax treatment and financial assistance for company sports that satisfy certain requirements.

○ The national government should actively support campaigns to host international athletic games,

including the Olympics and Paralympics, which bring about dreams and instill a profound impression in people and also contribute to increasing the number of sports lovers and expand

international exchange and contribution. ○ A favorable environment for school sports activities should be developed by enhancing physical

education classes ahead of the introduction of the new Courses of Study, increasing dietary education including school lunch hours, laying lawns on school grounds and building martial arts halls, and positively utilizing external instructors, including retired athletes, for extracurricular club activities, with a view to enhancing children’s physical strength.

○ A favorable environment for people to casually participate in local sports activities should also

be developed by developing sports facilities in local communities and supporting comprehensive community sports clubs.

○ Children should be given sufficient opportunities to have nature experiences in their lower

grades so as to build up their basic physical strength and formulate a well-rounded character. In order to ensure better guidance for children’s nature experiences, specialists in this field should be fostered and utilized, while teachers’ leadership in nature experiences should be enhanced through training in certificate renewal courses and teacher-training courses.