Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > JAPANESE GOVERMENT POLICICIES IN EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND CULTURE 1994 > PART II Chapter 3 Section 4 1

The new Courses of Study aim to create an environment that encourages children to acquire the attitudes and abilities enabling them to exercise willingly and that allows them to engage in exercise spontaneously and independently, with a view to promoting lifelong physical education and sports and the improvement of physical fitness in elementary, lower secondary, and upper secondary schools. This is to be done through the improvement of the content and other aspects of "physical education" and "health and physical education." In lower and upper secondary schools, the range of activities available has been expanded and individually targeted teaching enhanced, with the aim of fostering basic skills in lifelong physical education and sports. Other improvements include renaming kakugi (combat sports) budo (traditional martial arts) to emphasize the development of respect for Japanese culture and traditions and giving both boys and girls access to instruction in traditional martial arts and dance.

As the new Courses of Study are implemented, the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture has provided teaching guides and teacher's reference materials for use in the improvement of teaching in accordance with the new Courses of Study. It is also holding curriculum seminars and designating pilot schools to participate in various types of research.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture organizes a variety of seminars on practical skills for instructors of physical education, traditional martial arts, and skiing. The purpose of these activities is to improve the quality and skills of teachers, who are the front-line providers of school education. In addition, subsidies are provided for programs operated by prefectures, including training programs for traditional martial arts instructors and programs to provide assistant instructors in physical education.

To facilitate human resource utilization, the Educational Personnel Certification Law has been amended to create the Special Certificate System and the Special Arrangement for Part-time Teachers Without Teaching Certificates. These systems allow the employment of outside instructors in physical education.

Extracurricular sports club activities play an extremely important educational role in children's healthy mental and physical development and the development of basic abilities for use in lifelong sports activities. The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture is therefore working to enhance and expand extracurricular sports club activities by means of various measures, including the designation of pilot schools to implement practical research concerning the promotion of extracurricular sports club activities and the subsidization of prefectural programs to provide extracurricular sports club instructors and training programs for extracurricular sports club instructors.

National school athletic competitions in which children can participate include the National Lower Secondary School Athletic Meet (17 sports) and the National Upper Secondary School General Athletic Meet (30 sports). The Ministry provides subsidies to prefectures to cover organization and transportation costs for these events. In addition, the Ministry conducts research and surveys on sports activities of elementary schoolchildren to provide information for studies on sports activities that are appropriate to children's stage of mental and physical development.