Takeo Kawamura Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology In September 2003, the Honorable Kawamura Takeo was commissioned as Japan’s Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, a confirmation of his outstanding service in this ministry. This includes previous appointments as Chairman of the Standing Committee, and twice as Senior State Secretary and as Vice Minister. Born in 1942, and a graduate of Business and Commerce at Keio University, Minister Takeo began his career in the Japanese House of Representatives in 1990 and has been Director of various committees on: education, science and technology; youth affairs; and a special committee on the prevention of international terrorism. His active involvement in the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party’s Education Division includes repeated terms as Head of the Section and as Deputy Chairman of the Policy Research Council.

Raising the Quality of Education

In present-day Japan, which has accomplished a quantitative expansion of education, the priority is being moved toward policies to improve the quality of education. We have also been proceeding with structural reforms extending over the entirety of education in order to deal with the advancement of internationalization as well as social and economic changes such as transformations in the industrial structure. Today coping with such changes is an issue not limited to Japan but rather is common around the world. I expect that advancing the exchange and sharing of current circumstances as well as experiences and information by each country at this ICE will contribute to raising the quality of education around the world.

If I am to mention the concepts that are at the center of educational reforms in my country, I should first say that we aim to nurture warm-hearted and vigorous Japanese to pioneer a new era, and we are attempting a major switchover from “uniformity and passivity to independence and creativity.” Lying at the root of these concepts is the cultivation of a “zest for living,” including “definite scholastic ability,” and “rich humanity,” as well as “health and physical strength.” In addition, we have been paying attention to the key words “dietary education” in undertaking the cultivation of a “zest for living.” Explained in brief, dietary education is education concerned with food. But this is wide-ranging education that aims not only for the acquisition of knowledge about desirable eating habits but also for both fostering social skills through happy family circles at dinner tables and understanding of the food culture of one’s own nation.

In elementary and secondary education, we have been proceeding to have the New Courses of Study take root since their fundamental objective is to nurture a “zest for living” based on the present state of children in Japan. We have also been working to expand the range of elective learning and to further improve instruction responding to the individual, and have produced certain results. Moreover, starting last year, we have been aiming to improve “definite scholastic ability,” which is the intellectual side of a “zest for living.” We have also been advancing an action plan (such as projects to promote “the Period of Integrated Study,” which each school creatively devises to carry out learning, like international understanding and environmental education, going beyond the framework of courses in order to foster the strength to study and learn on one’s own); and we are grappling with the arrangement of conditions (such as training for both newly hired teachers and 10-year veteran teachers) to ensure the quality of education.

Offering young people a high-quality education will be absolutely indispensable to build a sustainable society extending into the future. Furthermore, it is our mission to arrange an environment under which it is easy to learn for the sake of all young people’s future.