The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2025 evaluates what students know and can do in science, reading, mathematics and computational problem-solving, assessing how effectively they can apply their knowledge to real-world challenges. The assessment also explores a range of broader competencies, attitudes and behaviours, including curiosity, perseverance and the use of artificial intelligence. PISA results provide valuable insights into the quality and equity of learning outcomes around the world, enabling educators and policymakers to learn from each other’s policies and practices. This country note provides a country-specific overview of Japan.

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) has the potential to address a range of goals, yet delivering on the potential of ECEC requires a workforce that is equipped and motivated to meet the unique demands of facilitating young children’s development, learning and well-being. The OECD Starting Strong Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS Starting Strong) focuses on the ECEC workforce. In 2024, ECEC staff and leaders in 17 countries and subnational entities shared insights into a wide range of topics, including their working conditions, professional development opportunities and their work with young children.

The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) is the world’s largest survey of teachers and principals. In 2024, educators from 55 education systems provided information about what they do and how they are doing. They explain if and how they use artificial intelligence, why they became teachers and if they wish to continue teaching. Governments use data from TALIS to make policies that improve teaching and learning conditions in their schools.

Education at a Glance is the authoritative source of information on the state of education worldwide. It offers comprehensive data on the structure, financing, and performance of education systems across OECD countries and partner economies. This publication features more than 100 charts and tables that present key insights into the output of educational institutions, the impact of learning across countries, access and participation in education, financial investment in education, and the roles of teachers and school organisation. The 2025 edition places a special focus on tertiary education, examining attainment rates, variations in labour market outcomes by field of study, completion rates, and the skills of adults with tertiary qualifications.

The early years set the foundations for children’s development and learning trajectories in life. Early inequalities can put children on divergent paths, but Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) policies can level opportunities from the start, with lasting economic and social benefits. Addressing gaps in participation in ECEC and strengthening its quality and inclusivity represent essential steps to support young children and families and reduce inequalities. Leveraging insights from recent research, the comparative report Reducing Inequalities by Investing in Early Childhood Education and Care discusses the drivers of inequalities in early childhood and the place of ECEC within the landscape of mitigating policies. It develops a policy roadmap for ECEC to better support equity and inclusion. This country note provides a country-specific overview of Japan.

The Survey of Adult Skills offers unique insights on adults’ proficiency in literacy, numeracy, and problem solving. These skills are crucial for both personal and societal success, and form the foundation for continuous learning and innovation. In 2022-23, the survey assessed adults aged 16-65 in 31 countries and economies. By comparing results over time and with those of other participating countries and economies, participants can track the skill levels of its adult population, pinpoint barriers to skill development and use, and craft effective policies to address these challenges.

This report, linked with the Digital Education Outlook 2023, provides an overview of 29 countries' (or jurisdictions') digital education ecosystem and governance. Each chapter covers the devolution of responsibilities within countries; how it affects digital education; what digital tools for management and teaching and learning are made publicly available to schools, teachers and students; how they are provided or procured; how countries ensure the security, privacy, equity and effectiveness of this digital ecosystem while keeping incentives for private education technology (EdTech) companies. The information and analysis are based on a survey on digital education infrastructure and governance, interviews with national and regional government officials as well as desk-based research. Providing for the first time a holistic view of 29 countries' and jurisdictions' digital education ecosystem and governance, this report will be of interest to policy makers, academics and education stakeholders interested in the digital transformation of education at home and internationally.

The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) examines what students know in reading, mathematics and science, and what they can do with what they know. It provides the most comprehensive and rigorous international assessment of student learning outcomes to date. Results from PISA indicate the quality and equity of learning outcomes attained around the world, and allow educators and policy makers to learn from the policies and practices applied in other countries. This country note provides a country-specific overview of Japan.

The Early Childhood Education and Care in a Digital World project was initiated to support countries and jurisdictions in investigating ways in which ECEC can respond to digitalisation, harnessing opportunities to promote high-quality and equitable early childhood education and care (ECEC) while minimising associated risks. The evidence base for the project includes responses to a policy survey, a collection of case studies across participating countries and jurisdictions, literature reviews from academic experts, and desk-based research carried out by the OECD Secretariat. The project’s final report, Empowering Young Children in the Digital Age (2023), was published as part of the OECD Starting Strong series. Six countries (Canada, Finland, Japan, Korea, Norway and Sweden) engaged more actively in the project and its data collection. This country note provides an overview of key findings from the project as they relate specifically to digitalisation challenges and ECEC policy responses in Japan.

Children’s learning, development and well-being are directly influenced by their daily interactions with other children, adults, their families and the environment. This interactive process is known as “process quality”, and leads to a key question – which policies set the best conditions for children to experience high-quality interactions in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings? This country note provides an overview of key findings from the project as they relate to the five main policy levers and their effect on process quality, focusing particularly on curriculum and pedagogy, and workforce development in Japan.

The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) is the first international large-scale survey that provides a voice to teachers and school principals, who complete questionnaires about issues such as the professional development they have received; their teaching beliefs and practices; the assessment of their work and the feedback and recognition they receive; and various other school leadership, management and workplace issues. This note presents findings based on the reports of lower secondary teachers and their school leaders in mainstream public and private schools in Japan.

The OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) is the first international large-scale survey that provides a voice to teachers and school principals, who complete questionnaires about issues such as the professional development they have received; their teaching beliefs and practices; the assessment of their work and the feedback and recognition they receive; and various other school leadership, management and workplace issues. This note presents findings based on the reports of lower secondary teachers and their school leaders in mainstream public and private schools in Japan.

Japan's education system is one of the top performers compared to other OECD countries. International assessments have not only demonstrated students' and adults' high level of achievement, but also the fact that socio-economic status has little bearing on academic results. In a nutshell, Japan combines excellence with equity. This high performance is based on the priority Japan places on education and on its holistic model of education, which is delivered by highly qualified teachers and supported by the external collaboration of communities and parents. But significant economic, socio-demographic and educational challenges, such as child well-being, teacher work load and the high stakes university exam, question the sustainability of this successful model. Policy makers in Japan are not complacent, and as Japan starts implementing its Third Basic Plan for the Promotion of Education (2018-22), they are carefully analysing tomorrow's threats to Japan's current success. This report aims to highlight the many strengths of Japan's education system, as well as the challenges it must address to carry out reforms effectively and preserve its holistic model of education. The ultimate goal is to ensure that the education system delivers the best for all students, and that Japanese learners have the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values they need for the 21st century.

The OECD Skills Outlook 2017 shows that skills matter for global value chains. The report presents new analyses based on the Survey of Adult Skills, a product of the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), and the Trade in Value Added Database. It develops a Scoreboard on Skills and Global Value Chains with the objective to measure the extent to which countries have been able to make the most of GVCs through the skills of their populations in terms of skills, global value chains, and social and economic outcomes. It also explains what countries would need to do to specialise in technologically advanced industries.

This Data Spotlight note on Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) provides a summary of ECEC policy inputs, outputs and outcomes in Japan. It uses data available within the OECD Secretariat - Education at a Glance, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the OECD Family Database - to make comparisons between Japan's ECEC system and the systems in other OECD countries. This note complements the 2015 OECD publication, Starting Strong IV: Monitoring Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care.

This policy profile on education in Japan is part of the Education Policy Outlook series, which presents comparative analysis of education policies and reforms across OECD countries. Building on the OECD's substantial comparative and sectorial policy knowledge base, the series offers a comparative outlook on education policy by providing analysis of individual countries' educational context, challenges and policies (education policy profiles), analysis of international trends, and insight into policies and reforms on selected topics.

This short country note recaps some Background on the 2014 OECD Measuring Innovation in Education report, the main Key report findings on innovation in education, the Report approach to measuring educational system innovation, along with Japan's top five organisational education innovations for the 2003-2011 period and Japan's top five pedagogic education innovations for the same interval.

For decades Japan has remained at or near the top of international assessments of student learning; and in the past decade, students in Japan have become more engaged in learning. However, the government aspires to improve learning outcomes even further. Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education: Lessons from PISA for Japan focuses on how Japan is reforming its education system not only to produce better learning outcomes, but to equip students with the skills they need to navigate through the unpredictable labour market of the future and to participate in society as active citizens. This is the second in a series of reports examining how education systems are handling the challenge of preparing their students for a world of interconnected populations, rapid technological change, and instantaneous availability of vast amounts of information. Like the first volume, Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education: Lessons from PISA for the United States, this report presents examples from other countries with consistently high-performing education systems or countries that, by redesigning policies and practices, have been able to improve their education outcomes, as measured by the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the world's most comprehensive and rigorous survey of students' skills and attitudes towards learning.

This Country Note on Japan forms part of the OECD Thematic Review of Tertiary Education. This is a collaborative project to assist the design and implementation of tertiary education policies which contribute to the realisation of social and economic objectives of countries.
The principal objective of the review is to assist countries to understand how the organisation, management and delivery of tertiary education can help them to achieve their economic and social objectives. The focus of the review is upon tertiary education policies and systems, rather than upon the detailed management and operation of institutions, although clearly the effectiveness of the latter is influenced by the former.

This background report describes matters with teacher policy in the backdrop in its Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, like recent trends in reforming education, the set-up of the school system in Japan, and the present situation of teachers. In respect to raising the qualities and abilities of teachers in Japan, since the cultivation, hiring, and training of teachers are carried out systematically at each stage, Chapter 4 describes teacher training, the licensing system and in-service training. Chapter 5 introduces the teacher hiring system and contrivances in the selection methods. Moreover, factors that are believed to contribute to securing capable teachers and maintaining such competent teachers at the school site are introduced in Chapters 3 and 6. The closing Chapter 7, recapitulates the entirety and presents characteristics of and issues for teacher policy in Japan.

Since World War II, and in reality since the Meiji era, one of several leading motifs for Japanese society and economy has been "catching up" with the West. Success is evident in cultural changes which have been analysed by many commentators, Japanese and foreign, and in quantitative growth in many aspects of life, notably the economic sphere. The reviewers scarcely need to add their testimony to these numerous achievements. In the field of education, growth has meant increasingly high levels of participation and efficiency in upper secondary, and then tertiary, education. Thus Japan ranks among the leading nations in completion of full secondary education and entry to tertiary education.