Japanese Tokkatsu education system: What you need to know

CAIRO – 28 April 2018: Egypt’s Ministry of Education will choose teachers soon to be trained in the Japanese education system, Tokkatsu, which will be applied at 40 Egyptian-Japanese schools in different governorates in September, sources inside the ministry told Egypt Today.

The sources added that 20,000 teachers have applied to the ministry for training in the Japanese Tokkatsu education system.

Tokkastu is an educational system known in Japan that develops all the skills of the student, focusing on creativity and thinking rather than conservation and indoctrination.


Nursery school children wash their hands before eating lunch at Hinagiku nursery in Moriyama, western Japan May 27, 2008. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao

The activities of the system allow students to practice teamwork and collaborate with colleagues to reach goals. Tokkatsu is applied to students within a class of no more than 40 students.

Activities are also aimed at building personality, teamwork skills, belonging, hygiene values, self-esteem, responsibility and thinking.

The Tokkastu system promotes students' self-confidence through several activities and skills, such as the allocation of a set of lessons to teach students hand washing and cleaning the classroom, the participation of students in school hygiene, food education, self-protection and behavior. Pupils also design activities and set goals for themselves, including mechanisms of implementation.

According to the system, pupils will have a meeting every morning and another one at the end of the day to discuss what they do through the day and put together activities for the next day in order to achieve more enjoyment from work and school.

According to that system, the school day will be extended until 3:30 p.m. to allow activities to be conducted between classes.

Tokkatsu is the Japanese education system that Egypt announced will be implemented through the Education Partnership Agreement signed between Egypt and Japan in March 2016.


FILE: Egyptian Japanese schools.

Planning began to implement Tokkatsu during the 2016/2017 academic year in 12 schools in Cairo.

In April 2017, the Ministry of Education announced starting the system in 45 other schools across the country.

On April 16, Minister of Education Tarek Shawki said that his ministry contacted the Ministry of Communications to provide Thanaweya Amma (high school) students with tablets as part of efforts to establish a new educational mechanism.

The World Bank's board of executive directors unanimously approved supporting Egypt’s national education strategy to develop pre-university education with $500 million, according to a statement from the Investment and International Cooperation Ministry on April 16.


Young children eating lunch at an official nursery school in Yokohama. (AFP)