Following the introduction of compulsory programming education in elementary schools (from the 2020 school year), the mandatory status of the high school course “Information I,” and its inclusion in the Common Test for University Admissions (from 2025), programming education in Japan has reached a major turning point.
As the system becomes firmly established, structural challenges and new contradictions are coming to light in the current educational environment and social context. The main issues can be summarized as follows.
1. Disparities in instructors' skills and excessive workloads in schools
Variation in teachers' experience and knowledge:
In elementary schools, programming is not taught as an independent subject. Instead, it is incorporated into existing subjects such as mathematics and science to foster “computational thinking.” As a result, depending on each teacher's IT literacy and programming experience, there are substantial regional and school disparities in the quality of lessons and the depth of content that can be taught.
Chronic overwork:
Teachers' workloads have reached their limits due to tasks such as managing devices under the GIGA School initiative, preparing lessons in advance, and responding to security issues. The additional duties brought about by revisions to the curriculum guidelines weigh heavily on teachers in schools.
2. “Formalization” in school education and limits on instructional time
Low frequency and superficial learning experiences:
Many schools are able to allocate time for substantive programming only a few times throughout the year (roughly once or twice a year). As a result, it is consumed as a “one-off event,” creating a structure in which logical thinking and implementation skills are difficult to establish systematically.
Difficulty of individualized optimization in large classes:
In a whole-class lesson of 30 to 40 students, it is physically extremely difficult for a single teacher to provide attentive support for differences in students' levels of proficiency—whether they understand and progress easily or struggle to keep up.
3. Risk of transformation into a memorization- and exam-oriented subject
Overemphasis on test preparation:
There are concerns that, now that the high school course “Information I” has become an examination subject in the Common Test for University Admissions, it may be transformed into a means of memorizing terminology and earning points to pass a written test, rather than retaining its original focus on “the fun of making things through trial and error” and the “problem-solving process.”
4. A paradigm shift in the “meaning of learning” brought about by the spread of generative AI
Redefining skills in the AI era:
We are now in an era where most code can be automatically generated by generative AI (such as agentic coding). In this environment, programming education limited to “writing code as instructed” is rapidly becoming obsolete.
A mismatch between required competencies:
What is needed now is “upstream architectural thinking”—the ability to give AI appropriate instructions (prompts) and design and orchestrate the overall structure of a system—as well as a “clear sense of purpose.” However, the current school curriculum and instructional support systems have not kept up sufficiently with the rapid pace of AI's evolution.