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

Educational and cultural facilities such as those for education, research and sports are expected to play a role as joint community facilities for lifelong learning and as a center of information activities as well. From 1988 the Ministry carried out "an investigative study on transforming educational and cultural facilities into intelligent facilities," publishing the results in a report in March 1990. This report recommends that future improvements in educational and cultural facilities should be considered broadly from the standpoint of community planning under new concepts for facility planning and ideas for design, i.e., improvement should be carried out to make facilities: 1)versatile and functional; 2)coordinated with the surrounding environment; 3)furnished with information and communication equipment as well as information processing functions and 4)create a comfortable and rich environment. On the basis of this report, the Ministry has been commissioning boards of education and others to carry out pilot studies on "intelligent buildings" since 1991.