○ In order to implement effective educational policies under the five basic policies indicated in Part 1, it is necessary to take issues, etc. that are defined through follow-up on the Second Basic Plan into consideration for each policy, to present goals for the policies and specific measures in a comprehensive and systematic manner, to verify outcomes based on objective evidence, and to engage in a cycle using it for the establishment of more effective and efficient measures.

○ Therefore, this Basic Plan presents measures for the next five years from fiscal year 2018 through fiscal year 2022 in accordance with five basic policies: （1） Goals for educational policies; （2） measurement indicators and reference indicators for identifying progress of the goals; and （3） measures necessary for achieving goals.

○ The Basic Plan for the Promotion of Education of the national government defines goals for entire county, indicators related to outcome, and measures that the national government engages in while paying attention to the fact that many education activities are autonomously implemented by local governments and private sectors. Concerning the specific methods of education in each education entity, it is expected that relevant persons will independently establish methods in consideration of the actual conditions in each community and experimental ground for education by referring to the goals of the entire country. In addition, it is important for the national government to identify distinctive and advancing activities in each community, and to engage in the development of the activities cross-sectionally by mutual exchange between communities, and to engage in using said activities for collaboration between communities and the enhancement of national measures.

○ In addition, measurement indicators and reference indicators indicated in this Plan require attention to the following points.

（1） Measurement indicators are established by selecting ones that are required and appropriate for indicating the direction of corrections based on the current level, etc. from among indicators that directly or indirectly present conditions of “goals for educational policies for the next five years.” When using measurement indicators and developing relevant measures, full caution is required to avoid activity traps, such as setting the achievement of a numerical goal as an objective and therefore causing a gap from the original situation to be achieved or causing undesirable results.

（2） Reference indicators are established by selecting ones that are sufficient to check for the presence of major changes in figures or ones whose level will be identified in the figure.

（3） It is necessary to note that the degree of achievement status of goals that can be measured is different for each indicator and it is difficult to evaluate all factors related to the achievement status of goals only by using indicators. When following up on the progress of the Plan, since indicators trigger a correction of status and development by identifying issues and reflecting them in measures, it is important to evaluate from multilateral aspects, including relevant information in addition to changes in the indicators.
In addition, the environments to which children, parents, etc. belong vary. Therefore, it is required to engage in implementation and evaluation of each measure in consideration of each individual situation.

（4） During the period of this Basic Plan, it is required to review more appropriate measurement indicators and reference indicators constantly and to lead them to future correction of the Plan.

（5） In addition, indicators for which progress should be identified in order to measure the achievement conditions of goals during following-up of the Basic Plan are separately prepared as reference data.

○ Furthermore, under the Basic Act on Education, local governments are required to consider the plan established by the national government and to strive to establish a basic plan related to measures for promotion of education based on the actual conditions of the community. Therefore, it is important to establish distinctive goals and measures in consideration of the actual conditions in each region and to engage in activities(*1). In this case, local governments are expected to consider indicators, etc. set by the national government, to review settings of indicators originated by the community based on their actual conditions or setting of appropriate indicators in comparison with national survey results, and to build a PDCA cycle by identifying the current status from cross-tallying, etc. between multiple indicators and other data.

 *1 Concerning basic plans established by local governments, they are established by all 47 prefectures, all 20 government ordinance-designed cities, and 44 core cities （as of September 1, 2017）. Concerning basic plans established by municipal governments, 78.5% of them established basic plans and 4.6% of municipal governments that have not established basic plans are planning to establish them （as of March 31, 2017）.