Koizumi: AI Quest is a program aimed at creating a place of practical learning, mainly using case studies based on actual issues experienced by businesses.

Conceived on our belief that personnel development is essential for a wider introduction of AI in society, the program was carried out from October to February, with about 200 participants. Saito and Orimo helped us in many respects of the program, including development of educational methods, such as material development, operation of the program and review of its impact.

There are many examples of developing AI specialists using advanced methods. For example, a programming school in France, called “42,” charges no tuition fees but it conducts a monthlong, round-the-clock test. Meanwhile in the United States, there are people who pay high tuition to attend schools because internet companies, including GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon), are hiring AI specialists at high salaries.

So overseas, such intense competition between people seeking to enter the industry has partially driven the development of education.

Saito: Naturally, if the size of the job market where one can play a viable role is significant, it serves as an incentive to learn. The U.S. has an established design of a game in which people who have solved a problem can take control of business, but Japan is still in a phase where such a game is being created.

That is why it is important to show to the public an image of talent who can generate economic impact through specific achievements capitalizing on AI, which will help increase motivation for learning — not just the vague air of us doing an AI-related project.

I think it is necessary to create an ecosystem where such individuals will play an active role in accelerating an increased use of AI in society.

Orimo: But in Japan, we have an issue to solve before setting an ideal talent model. Our problem is that, in Japan, corporate and personnel strategies aren’t linked together. Personnel measures are carried out without clearly defined job descriptions. It’s often unclear what types of talent you have on your team. When you’re thinking of corporate strategy for the future, you’re not sure how many digital specialists may become necessary.

Responding to such social transformation, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) launched the Educational Industry Office in 2017. As the ministry oversees the private education industry, including cram schools and lessons outside of school, it has since promoted efforts to spur innovation, including ed tech, created by private sector parties for schools to seek new platforms of education.

This ministerial effort was collectively named the Learning Innovation Project, with three pillars being promoted across the country. These pillars are self-driven and individually optimized learning; STEAM-based learning approach; and new educational environment development. STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.

Specifically, experimental programs have been conducted at schools utilizing ed tech to effectively introduce knowledge of school subjects and expertise — which would create spare time — and then holding STEAM-based lessons using this extra time. Placing curiosity and excitement of children at their core, these projects seek to circulate the act of “learning” obtained from input and that of “creation” based on STEAM-focused sessions.

For instance, an elementary school in Shizuoka Prefecture is working to incorporate ed tech into a math class — a part of the learning process — and holds STEAM-based lessons on tag rugby and programming — a part of the creation process — for its sixth-grade students.

By making use of ed tech, the former has achieved learning styles better suited for each student while simultaneously having appropriate instructions from teachers and students teaching each other. In the end, this effort aims to both streamline learning and deepen understanding among individual students.

Developing STEAM-based study materials themed on tag rugby and programming, the latter effort sets out to enable students to learn the physical coordination needed for tag rugby and at the same time express how to move their body in an electronic sense, utilizing knowledge of programming.

These programs eventually pursue the acquisition of the ability to set assignments, which in this case is connected with covering fractions and proportions in math, and the students’ ability to solve problems by themselves.

Furthermore, METI has co-organized campaigns with municipalities and other relevant parties across the country for the Learning Innovation Project in a bid to disseminate, facilitate understanding and promote the introduction of ed tech and STEAM-based education.

These efforts surely offer officials of municipal governments and local education boards, teachers, parents and students opportunities to get to know ed tech and STEAM-focused programs in person. They are also expected to help them realize the learning effect potential of ed tech, which would obviously boost the introduction and spread of this concept.

Goda: I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel puzzled about that. The futures MEXT and METI describe actually overlap, so I was looking forward to this discussion, hoping to deepen mutual understanding.

This might be off track, but I heard you’ve been to Hiroshima to support areas affected by heavy rain in western Japan, right?

Asano: Yes. It was only for eight days, but I was reminded that disaster-hit areas are at the forefront of social issues that need to be addressed. What matters there is the ability to judge instantly where and what kind of support is necessary, and the mobility to act as a team. Demand for bento surpassed the supply, so we asked local students to help increase production. Within an hour, about 100 of them had rushed to the site. I was really moved by this. It’s precisely the implementation of hands-on, project-based learning in practice.

At the same time, I felt it’s essential to create a social climate accepting of such an effort.

Goda: Amid changing situations, adults needing to prompt and push children to think about their priorities and actions, as well as to be proactive, is education in a broader sense.

The drastic progress of AI requires children, more than ever, to exercise human potential regarding things only they can do. We feel the necessity to reform the way of learning; not only lectures across the board altogether, but also collaborations and studying with different grades of students, as well as in different groups, should be valued.

Asano: As far as we see in the new curriculum guideline that features an educational approach of proactive, dialogue-based and engaging learning (active learning) through discussions and presentations, I can say MEXT’s awareness of the issues is of the same vein as our own.

Education now on next stage

Goda: About 20 years have passed since MEXT came up with the “relaxed education” policy that placed emphasis on learning and experience-based activities to hone thinking power, but society has drastically changed since then. AI’s victory over the world champion of the board game go is a symbolic event that represents this change. I consider it a turning point for society to clearly anticipate the future.

AI can easily surpass human intelligence in a field with a definitive structure and an abundance of data. Through witnessing such a phenomenon, many people have come to realize the necessity of collaborating with others and autonomous learning through thorough thinking.

Of course, it’s a given fact to steadily acquire fundamental academic skills. The new curriculum guideline after 20 years shows Japanese education is about to enter the next phase. (Note: The curriculum is to be implemented from the 2020 academic year at elementary schools and from the 2021 academic year at junior high schools.)

Asano: Over the past six months, both ministries promoted discussions; with MEXT at the “Round Table Conference with the Minister on nurturing individual talent toward Society 5.0” and METI at the “Study Group for Learning Innovation — ‘Future Classroom’ and EdTech” (educational technology). What we wanted to emphasize the most was the importance of nurturing skills to creatively seek out tasks and solve them. Moreover, it’s an attitude to rise up to tasks, crossing over to disciplines different from one’s own, and the tenacity to push through for a touchdown after struggling in different ways, mud and all. These abilities cannot be acquired overnight; I think education from early childhood is essential. That’s why we at METI decided to also work for the sake of education.

In the transformation of learning styles, schools can offer study content tailored to a student’s depth of understanding and progress through utilization of information technology. Additionally, if the use of AI could streamline the acquisition of basic knowledge, it would create spare time to allocate for creative learning hours. To what extent could these educational innovations be accepted?

Goda: Under the decentralized educational administration, there are many things that a school and an education board can do. Of course, relevant parties engaging in education, including MEXT, need to transform their mindset and culture to match the challenge oriented. At the same time, we all obviously have to continue to elaborate how the educational system should be, as needed.

Teachers as producers

Goda: Regarding individualized and optimized learning, I actually have something I’m worried about right now from a perspective that what’s important, above all, is whether such education is provided fairly.

It’s a sentiment shared by teachers at schools that there is an increasing discrepancy in vocabulary among children entering elementary school. I’m deeply concerned that such a discrepancy would lead to differences in their academic performance levels, which might not shrink in the future. As a countermeasure, I have an expectation that repetitive learning with the use of IT is effective. Upon hearing the utilization of IT in the classroom, many people tend to conjure an image of everybody working silently with a tablet. In order to exercise human potential that is essential in the era of AI, the significance of learning in a group setting such as studying and teaching from one another is increasingly important. We need to consider the ways to bring about proactive, dialogue-based and engaging learning, giving thought to how to create a lesson unit with a particular intention. I assume future teachers would be required to not only have teaching skills, but to also play a producer-type role to stage and coordinate learning for their students.

Asano: What I’m concerned about is that classes tend to proceed with a predetermined approach based on a teacher’s plan.

Goda: Predetermination is what the Japanese educational circle has to overcome. For example, in the dotoku (moral education) class, a “special subject” (introduced in April at elementary schools and to start at junior high schools from next April), it is supposed to be taught that if students discover an instance of bullying, they are recommended to report it to teachers and parents at once. At the same time, according to another dotoku guideline, it tells students to place a thorough trust in friends.

We consciously included such conflicts in moral value in the new curriculum guideline. Each idea sounds harmonious by itself. However, what people would inevitably face in the real world are conflicts of values and a gap between these values and reality. We want students to cultivate skills to squarely face dilemmas and unexpected problems, and coordinate them well, as well as nurture abilities to responsibly carry out things; rather than just seeking to resolve these issues with only pleasant conversation.

Unlocking common sense

Asano: I personally feel that teachers themselves are caught up in the present idea of common sense or stereotype that “the conclusion should be this.” So, to carry out active learning in a true sense in the classroom, the first step would be to relieve them from such notions.

Goda: I think it’s the same for us parents and companies. People’s attitudes have not caught up with the social changes of the past five or 10 years, a volume of change so large that it can be described as destructive.

That being said, if we were to change our perspective on children, we can say that children have the potential to challenge and create new things because of their penchant for destruction.

Asano: To relieve teachers from said notions, it’s essential to have exchanges with various organizations, such as the economic circle and nonprofits. So for that reason, we’d like to create opportunities to talk. I’m sure the words from people who generate new values would resonate more with them than those of ministry officials.

Our ministry’s demonstration experiment works to develop a new educational program utilizing edtech and others through collaborations among private firms, nonprofits, junior high and high schools across the country. We’d like MEXT to be part of this framework and in the meantime, we’d like to join MEXT’s platform that involves educational board chiefs and school principals. We’d like to bridge our borders more and more.

Dialogue with various groups

Goda: I’d definitely like to hold talks between people who generate new values and teachers and parents.

I’m also in charge of work reform at schools, so I want to change the current situation. Our ministry would like to engage in a dialogue with manufacturers and startups in the education field, explaining that the introduction of edtech would drastically change the quality of education. At the same time, we seek to redefine the expertise of teachers again and to transform the quality of education and the way the teachers work at once through building a social consensus. I’m aware that this is a theme leading to how the country should be.

Asano: Let’s work on things together for years to come.

It is an urgent task to secure human resources both in quality and quantity for Japan to be capable of addressing the fourth industrial revolution, which includes integration of artificial intelligence, and demographic changes due to dwindling birthrates and an aging population.

The key solution is to increase productivity, but it’s difficult to accomplish this task only through cutting labor hours and labor-saving investment. Advancing productivity becomes possible when accompanied by motivations of individual workers, such as a sense of engagement and joy in working. Streamlining and motivation are sort of two sides of the same coin. We think that education and investment in human resources are the keys to piece together the two different elements.

Acquiring lasting skills

What’s essential now is to learn how to learn, not what needs to be learned.

Knowledge and skills in a particular field become obsolete at once in the current age of rapidly changing technology and society. In the era of the 100-year life, it’s vital for people to re-examine and develop substantial abilities and skills at any organization or corporation, in addition to skills only effective for a brief period.

What can be defined as the essential skills of a working adult is comparable to defining operating software as a human resource. Individuals have to regularly upgrade it, as they do for their smartphones.

Single track to multiple paths

Lynda Gratton, a professor at the London Business School, stressed the significance of changing the single-track of a three-stage life of “receiving education, followed by working and retirement subsequently” to that of a multitrack one in the international bestseller “The 100-Year Life” that she co-authored.

Apparently, learning won’t end with graduating from school, and learning and working will be increasingly incorporated, especially in the AI-integrated society to come. Rather than just dealing with assigned tasks, broadening one’s horizons by actively going out to various sites oneself and interacting with people who have different sets of values will enhance social sensitivity and expand one’s career path.

A report compiled by young METI officials in 2017 described a conventional career view in the past as “Showa sugoroku,” likening the path to the Showa Era (1926–1989) when Japan experienced high economic growth, and a Japanese board game (similar to The Game of Life) where the goal is to move one’s game piece from the start to the finish line by rolling dice.

In contrast, the career view in the coming years won’t be described by sugoroku, where retirement means reaching the finish line after steadily advancing on a designated route. I suppose the future landscape will be similar to that of smartphone game “Pokemon Go,” that prompts players to go out to various areas and capture powerful creatures, namely “rare cards,” wherever they choose to go.

People are then required to boost their core strengths and strategically learn abilities that help broaden their paths, not to simply be skill collectors.

We are aware that there is bewilderment in the private sector amid calls of various political slogans — including “engagement of all 100 million citizens,” work-style reform and the era of the 100-year life. It’s true that there are concerns in traditional Japanese companies that even if companies support employees in acquiring versatile skills or accumulating various experience, employees might eventually quit or such efforts won’t bear fruit in their main businesses.

However, please consider it carefully. For Japan, shortage of labor is not a temporary phenomenon; rather, it is something that has been created because of a long-standing structural change. Companies reluctant to invest on the human resources front will lose their competitive edge and certainly be forced to withdraw from the market. Crafting a good human resources strategy is a matter of making a management plan that creates innovation and survives global competition. Company leaders need to reaffirm the importance of this urgent agenda and work on resolving it.

Changing role of firms

In the era of the 100-year life, an individual’s occupational life is obviously longer than that of a company based on the statistics that corporate life lasts 30 years or so. The social role a company plays will be different in an era where people experience career changes.

As discussed at the METI’s Study Group for Enhancing Human Resource Capability, companies will be increasingly required to place more importance on the capacity building of their employees than simply securing their employment until retirement. If the mobility of human resources progresses further, it might be the case that the social role of companies will grow to become, at their best, able to provide employees with opportunities for growth.

Individual workers, on the other hand, would strictly sort companies from the perspective of assessing how much they can develop themselves and achieve growth through working at a particular firm. Consequentially, Japanese companies now face the test of how to build a new relationship with their employees, differing from the conventional relations between companies and employees.