Nurturing children with the power of community

ESTABLISHING STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

As part of the executive directions set by the management of JAXA, the Space Education Center has been tasked since the fiscal year 2008 to establish strategic partnerships in all nine regional blocs of Japan, i.e. Hokkaido, Tohoku, Kanto, Hokuriku and Shinetsu, Tokai, Kinki, Chugoku, Shikoku, Kyushu and Okinawa.

This is to ensure that the kind of classroom support provided by the Center continues to be expanded and further enhanced in an effective manner to benefit each of the primary and secondary schools without requiring direct and intense support by the Center itself. While it does not need to be a school, and it could well be a science museum or a board of education in a local community̶a strategic partners should endorse the goals and principles of the Center and should actively pursue the development of space education materials and teaching methods to be introduced to schools within the bloc under its responsibility. The Center was also tasked to ensure the steady increase in the number of schools that newly introduce aerospace subjects into their classroom teaching by using the materials or teaching methods developed by the strategic partners in their bloc.

As of March 2019, the Center has concluded agreements with 37 entities to serve as its strategic partners in all nine blocs.