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PART Recent Trends and Developments in Government Policies in Education, Science and Culture

To keep up with the spread of information media in the various segments of our society, the Ministry has been conducting a number of studies regarding the provision of more information media for educational and cultural institutions. Based on the results of these studies, the Ministry is facilitating the provision of information equipment in each of these institutions and the development of relevant facilities and equipment necessary for the shaping of information networks among these institutions.

With regard to the concept of "intelligent" educational facilities as recommended by the National Council on Educational Reform, in March 1990 the Ministry published a report on a study project on "Making Educational and Cultural Faci1ities More Intelligent" - a project for studying basic concepts and principles for developing more "intelligent" educational and cultural facilities and for studying concrete strategies for developing such facilities. Based on this report, the Ministry is striving to give educational and cultural institutions better information environments by providing them with diverse functions of information communications and processing.

In addition, the Ministry has been taking a variety of measures for promoting services for presenting lifelong learning resource information, with a view to meeting diversified and heightened learning demands by providing people with proper information services, as well as counseling services, regarding life long learning opportunities.

Further, the Ministry is facilitating the development of science information systems whereby researchers at institutions of higher education can have quick access to the precise information they need. The development of in-campus information networks is under way in individual universities. The Ministry is also endeavoring to facilitate the further development of various databases so that a great variety of science information may be efficiently utilized.