Egypt, JICA celebrate 1st batch of Egyptian Tokkatsu Officers

CAIRO - 8 December 2021: Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Egyptian Ministry of Education and Technical Education held a ceremony earlier this week to handover the Certificates to the first batch of Egyptian Tokkatsu Officers who have played a significant role in promoting and practicing Tokkatsu activities in Egypt.

The ceremony was attended by Deputy Minister of Education for Teachers Affairs, Reda Hegazy, the Ambassador Designate of Japan to the Arab Republic of Egypt, Oka Hiroshi, Professor Hany Helal, Former Minister of Higher Education and the Secretary General of EJEP Steering Committee, Imoto Sachiko, JICA Senior Vice President, Nevine Hamouda, Advisor to the Minister for Strategic Relations,  Omura Yoshifumi, Chief Representative of JICA Egypt office, and Professor Isam Hamza, Director of Liberal Arts and Culture Centre (LACC), on behalf of Professor Ahmed ElGohary, President of Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST) 

Since the launching of Egypt-Japan Educational Partnership (EJEP), during President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi's visit to Japan in 2016, and with the opening of the Egypt-Japan School (EJS) in 2018, JICA and the Ministry of Education have been collaborating for the promotion of activities related to Japanese-style education and character building, with a focus on “Special Activities”, adopted under the name of "Tokkatsu" in the Egyptian national curriculum.

These Tokkatsu activities focus on the development of the children's non-cognitive skills through fostering their autonomous abilities, social and independent attitudes, and establishing human relationships that form the basis for academic achievement. Tokkatsu in Egypt is implemented through a bunch of activities such as the Classroom Discussion, Class Instruction, Daily Coordinator, Cleaning, and others similar to what is applied in the schools in Japan.

In this regard, JICA in cooperation with Ministry of Education and Technical Education have supported the establishment of a pilot project of “Tokkatsu Training and Certification System” (TTCS)  to develop the knowledge methodology and to examine the skills acquired by TOKKATSU Officers through the training provided by Japanese Experts.

The process of evaluation of the completion of the knowledge methodology has been conducted over a period of one year, by a group of leading Egyptian and Japanese Experts and Professors applying a very strict process.  As a result,  the ceremony was held to celebrate certifying the first batch of Tokkatsu Officers who have supported the application of Tokkatsu activities in Egypt since its early days, as future Tokkatsu leaders, by passing the evaluation process with strict standards.

Both sides praised the achieved progress and agreed to continue the mutual cooperation for more achievements that contributes to the Egyptian government’s efforts for comprehensive reforms of the education.