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

With the recent rapid and drastic changes in social conditions surrounding children, it has become a national task to develop citizens who have a well-rounded personality and are able to cope adequately with the social changes which will continue to take place in the coming years. It has been pointed out that along with the increase of nuclear families and of families with one or two children, children of today are lacking in basic manners and social skills, and that they have not adequately developed a sound moral basis which would help prevent bullying and other types of problem behaviors.

In the revised Course of Study, drastic improvements were attempted in the content or moral education. These improvements include: (1) restructuring the content of moral instruction and concentrating on the essentials, (2) enriching instruction regarding how to live as a human being, (3) enriching moral education activities throughout the entire school activities, and (4) strengthening links with the family and the community. These reforms were put into practice in 1990.

Further, with a view to providing a sound basis for promoting moral education, the Ministry has taken a variety of measures, including the designation of several pilot schools with programs for strengthening moral education. In 1991, in order to further enrich moral education, the Ministry not only continued to conduct the above mentioned programs, but also was developing integrated municipal programs for conducting moral education under which schools and communities are requested to engage in moral education as a whole.