The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Digital Textbook Conference. Perhaps because news of the repeal of the “1/2 rule” for digital textbooks had been circulating beforehand, there appeared to be over 200 members of the public in attendance. The moment a MEXT official stated, “We believe it is appropriate to repeal the 1/2 rule,” I couldn’t help but jot it down.

Reference: Government Policy: Restrictions on Digital Textbooks to Be Lifted Starting in April 2021 (Nikkei)

A 15-page document titled “Proposed Revision of the Standard Limiting the Use of Digital Textbooks for Learners to Less Than Half of the Total Class Hours for Each Subject” was distributed, and it made me realize once again that relaxing regulations is far more difficult than imposing them.

In any case, since we had been advocating for the prompt repeal of the 1/2 restriction, I would like to express my gratitude for your careful efforts in synthesizing the discussions toward that end.

The discussion that followed continued to focus on how to implement digital textbooks, but I felt a bit frustrated because it seemed like we were “deciding things that didn’t need to be decided.”

There are surely matters that should be decided uniformly at the national level and others that should be left to local governments or those on the ground. For example, I feel the “1/2 restriction” was originally a classic example of the latter. However, we are now facing difficulties precisely because we made a decision—the “1/2 restriction”—that we didn’t need to make. At the same time, a decision that must be made—namely, whether to prioritize digital—has not been reached. That is how the situation appears to me.

First, there should be an overall decision on whether to prioritize digital or not. If digital is the priority, I think it’s better to focus on how to promote the main strategy rather than on how to handle the secondary one.

He made comments like that.

I also took the opportunity to comment on the use of data, which was a topic of discussion at the recent Keidanren × Learning of Tomorrow symposium.

I believe that moving toward the use of data such as learning histories will enable us to create a richer, individually optimized learning environment; however, depending on how it is implemented, things could go in a completely different direction. This is evident from the fact that, based on news reports about linking this data to My Number, a heated debate—including misunderstandings—has already emerged around the perception that the government or schools will manage learning data.I believe that data belongs to the learners themselves, and that we should create a secure environment where they can utilize and manage it according to their own wishes. However, while we need to thoroughly discuss fundamental questions such as “Who owns the data?”, I would also like to ask that accurate information continue to be disseminated to prevent misunderstandings.

The backlash surrounding data feels very similar to the backlash we faced 10 years ago when we advocated for digital textbooks. Driven by a vague sense of anxiety about this new “digital” trend, many people opposed the idea outright without delving deeply into its benefits. It took Japan a very long time to move from that point to institutionalizing the system. I fear the same thing could happen with data.

We plan to hold a symposium on that topic in the near future, featuring an open discussion.