K-12 Computer Science Education in Japan

背景

アメリカのACM 教育小委員会からK-12(小学校〜高校)教育でのコンピューターサイエンス教育についての国際比較で調査依頼が来て、日本の学校教育でのコンピューターサイエンスの実施状況を英語でまとめたのが有意義そうだったので、英語のままで公表します。

Background

Association for Computing Machinery Education Council subcommittee sent me survey of K-12 Computer Science Education in Japan.

I wrote rough report for them, And since it seems helpful for global CS Educational comparison, I publish that report on my blog.


My report

Thank you for getting interested in K-12 CS in Japan.

Let me explain overview of K-12 CS Education first.

Overview

There are elementary school (6 -12 years old), junior high school (12 - 15 years old) and senior high school (15 - 18years old) in Japan. Elementary and junior high school are mandatory. Senior high school is not mandatory but the entrance rate is over 98%.

Ministry of Education ( MEXT : http://www.mext.go.jp/en/ ) detects the government course guidelines every decade.

Senior high school

In senior high school, there is mandatory subject area named "Information". In current guidelines, every school chooses subject "Information Study for Participating Community" or "Information Study by Scientific Approach" for "Information". Only "Information Study by Scientific Approach" contains CS curriculum such as programming, data, network etc. But 20% of school chooses "Information Study by Scientific Approach". Information requires CS teaching license for teachers.

In next guidelines, 2 subjects will be merged and reassembled as mandatory subject "Information-1" and optional subject ”Information-2”. Both of them will contain CS curriculum. It will starts in 2020.

Junior high school

In junior high school, there is mandatory subject named "Technology and Home Economics ". It contains programming in section of "automatic measurements and controls". It will take around 4 hours but depends on teacher. In next guidelines which starts 2021, MEXT considers to increase hour and content.

Elementary school

In elementary school CS is not taught in current guidelines. But in next guidelines which starts 2020, programming will be mandatory in part of other subject such as science, math or art.

Training

We provides training for elementary school teacher. Some university provides training for senior high school teacher. Also in Japan, teachers have voluntarily study meeting in local area. (Not only CS but also all subjects)


Additional question are welcome to info[at]code.or.jp