Japan Office

With the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, the issue of potentially moving the start of the Japanese academic year to September has risen up the agenda and is being hotly debated. A research group led by Oxford’s Professor Takehiko Kariya has compiled a report giving data on the social impact of such a move, including how it will affect the education budget, nursery schools, after-school care provision, and teacher numbers. The report does not take a position on the desirability of making such a move, but aims to provide solid data to encourage debate on the issue based on clear, sound evidence.

The report can be found here: ９月入学導入に対する教育保育における社会的影響に関する報告書(Japanese only)

The team who compiled the report are:

Group leader:
Takehiko Kariya (Professor, University of Oxford)

Research team (in Japanese phonetic order):
Shinichi Aizawa (Associate Professor, Sophia University)
Satoshi Araki (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Information and Communication)
Naoya Okamoto (Administrative Director, Glocal Academy)
Takayasu Nakamura (Professor, University of Tokyo)

Research assistants:
Hiroki Ikeda
Hibiki Nakamura

Please address enquiries about this report to:
Shinichi Aizawa (s-aizawa@sophia.ac.jp) regarding chapters 1 and 2 and for general enquiries about this project
Naoya Okamoto (no251@glocal-academy.or.jp) regarding chapters 1, 3, 4 and 5
Please credit the above when citing the data in this report.