By Makoto Hattori

8:00 JST, July 5, 2025

To ensure that all students in Japan receive a high-quality education regardless of their school, the national government sets curriculum standards. These standards specify what must be taught at each grade and for how many hours. Textbooks and class schedules are strictly aligned with these standards. However, within this rigid system, more and more students are losing sight of why they are learning, and they are struggling to engage with their studies. A once-in-a-decade revision of the curriculum standards is now underway, with the aim of creating schools where everyone can enjoy learning and lead a happy school life.

With special permission from the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, public elementary and junior high schools in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward have changed their allocation of class hours since last year. The schools divide their days into two parts: Mornings are devoted to core subjects like Japanese, math and science, while afternoons are focused on inquiry-based learning including “integrated studies time.” Inquiry-based learning is a process aimed at developing the problem-solving skills needed to thrive in an unpredictable future. Integrated studies employ cross-disciplinary, inquiry-based learning and form an integral part of the current national curriculum standards.

Since Shibuya’s approach was presented as a model in discussions at the Central Council for Education, I visited the ward’s Jinnan Elementary School at the end of May. With the school set to be rebuilt next year, the sixth-grade classes chose “the school of the future” as their shared theme for this year’s inquiry-based learning. Students have been envisioning the ideal learning environments, school events and classroom designs for their new school. Their results will eventually be presented to the local government and could bring real changes.

On the day I visited, a class was held in the gymnasium and an employee of tech giant DeNA was working alongside teachers as a guest instructor. At the students’ request, DeNA prepared a video introducing overseas education systems. The video was paused at intervals for the class to discuss it. Watching American high school students go from passive learning to active exploration, some children remarked,........

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