Egypt and Japan have expanded a teacher-training diploma based on the Japanese Tokkatsu model to seven Egyptian universities. The development, reported by local media on Wednesday, September 9, marks another step in the expansion of the Egypt-Japan Education Partnership (EJEP), launched in 2016. A decade after the partnership began, Tokkatsu has become a central part of Egypt’s education reforms, while cooperation with Japan has broadened into teacher training, vocational education and higher education.
The partnership grew out of a 2016 state visit to Japan, when President Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi observed Japanese classrooms and decided to introduce a version of the model in Egypt. Tokkatsu, an educational framework that has been mandatory in Japanese schools since the postwar education reforms, is not an additional academic subject. It is built around student-led activities that form part of everyday school life, including class meetings, cleaning classrooms and school facilities together, and organizing school events. These activities are designed to develop skills such as cooperation, discipline, persistence and responsibility.
Egypt has since expanded the partnership well beyond...