(Head office: Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director: Yoshinori Koike), in preparation for the risk of a prolonged emergency situation caused by the new coronavirus, has launched the "Mirai no Hoiku Consortium," in which various parties involved in the education and care of children will work together to examine concrete solutions using technology toward "flexible, strong and sustainable childcare" that can withstand the diverse social environment changes that will occur in the future. The Consortium has launched the "Mirai no Hoiku Consortium" to examine specific solutions using technology through discussions and demonstration experiments.
(Head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President: Yoshitada Ishibashi), Benesse Corporation (Head office: Okayama City, Okayama Prefecture; General Manager, Kids & Family Business Division: Toshihiko Nishimura), and BABY JOB Co. (Head office: Yodogawa-ku, Osaka; Representative Director: Hiroki Nada) will jointly launch the project by March 2021, and will conduct various initiatives while conducting demonstration experiments.
Three Themes
The state of emergency declared due to the new coronavirus has forced us to reduce the scale of our childcare services. As a result, children's opportunities for learning have been reduced, and families have been burdened with the burden of raising children while their parents work while still in school. The Mirai no Hoiku Consortium has established three themes for sustainable childcare in light of this situation.
- Creating a system that enables children to receive quality education and care in diverse environments
- Creating an environment in which childcare workers can continue to work long and rewarding careers
- In-home childcare support for parents to ensure that all families raising children can raise their children with peace of mind
Outline of Activities
The consortium will solicit project proposals from various businesses and institutions in the childcare industry that match the consortium's theme, and conduct demonstration experiments at actual childcare facilities to test the usefulness of these projects, After the experiment, the consortium will provide feedback from the childcare facilities and verify the effectiveness of the projects, and if the projects prove to be useful, the consortium will consider advising government agencies and commercializing them so that they can continue to provide the service to childcare facilities.
Efforts to address immediate issues
Based on the impact of the new coronavirus on daycare center operations and feedback from the frontline obtained through an emergency survey conducted by Codomon Inc. in mid-March, they have identified the following issues to be addressed immediately, based on the current situation under the declared state of emergency.
- Verification of the effectiveness of online childcare
- Verification of the introduction of telework in the childcare field
- Verification of online joint job fairs
- Support for procurement of supplies (masks, disinfectant, etc.) to continue daycare management
The members of the consortium have been working on online childcare for some time, such as Benesse Corporation's "Online Kindergarten," which was recently featured on babytech.jp. We hope that this collaboration will verify the effectiveness of the service and produce an even better form of service.
