(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 collaborate and work towards "flexible, strong and sustainable childcare" that can withstand diverse social environmental changes in the future. The consortium has launched the Mirai no Hoiku Consortium to examine specific solutions using technology through discussions and demonstrations.
The consortium is a collaboration between Codomon Inc, Global Kids Inc (Head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President: Yoshitada Ishibashi), Benesse Corporation (Head office: Okayama City, Okayama Prefecture; General Manager, Kids & Family Business Division: Toshihiko Nishimura), BABY JOB Inc (Head office: Yodogawa-ku, Osaka City; President: Hiroki Nada), and BABY JOB Inc. (Head office: Yodogawa-ku, Osaka, Japan; Representative Director: Hiroki Nada) will jointly launch the project by March 2021, and will carry out various initiatives while conducting demonstration experiments.
Three themes
The declaration of a state of emergency due to the new coronavirus has forced us to reduce the scale of childcare. This has resulted in a reduction in learning opportunities for children and a greater burden on families as parents work at home while raising children. In light of these circumstances, the Mirai no Hoiku Consortium has set three themes for sustainable childcare.
- Creation of a system that enables children to receive high-quality education and childcare even in diverse environments
- Create an environment in which childcare workers can continue to work with satisfaction for a long time.
- In-home childcare support for parents so that all child-rearing families can raise their children with peace of mind
Outline of Activities
The consortium will solicit project proposals that match the theme of the consortium from a variety of businesses and organizations in the childcare industry, and will conduct demonstration experiments at actual childcare facilities to test their usefulness. After the experiments, the company will provide feedback from childcare facilities and verify the effectiveness of the system, and will consider commercializing the system so that it can be provided as a service to childcare facilities on an ongoing basis.
Initiatives to address the most recent issues
Based on the impact of the new coronavirus on the operation of childcare centers and the opinions of those on the frontlines, which were obtained through an emergency questionnaire conducted by Codomon Inc. in the middle of March, the following issues were identified for immediate action based on the current situation under the declaration of a state of emergency.
- Validating the effectiveness of online childcare
- Verification of the Introduction of Telework in Childcare Settings
- Verification of online joint job fairs
- Support for procuring supplies to continue running the nursery (masks, disinfectant, etc.)
Benesse Corporation's "Online Kindergarten," which was featured on babytech.jp the other day, and other consortium members have been working on online childcare for some time, and we hope that this collaboration will verify the effectiveness of the service and create a better form of service. We hope that this collaboration will enable us to verify the effectiveness of our services and create even better services.
