Japan: Summary of FY2023 Action for the My Future Discovery Program for Junior High Schools
The My Future Discovery Program is a career education program provided to junior high schools by the Panasonic Group as a part of its corporate citizenship activities. The program provides teaching materials such as slide presentations, worksheets, and teacher guides that can immediately be put to use by teachers in classrooms, and also supports school visits by employees. The classes make students think about what sort of person they want to be in the future and what they have to do now to achieve that, providing them a chance to gain valuable life skills.
In FY2023 teaching materials were provided to 355 schools, and school visits reached 54 of those schools. Through requests from Japanese schools in other countries teaching materials have been sent to Qingdao (China), Jakarta (Indonesia), and Buenos Aires (Argentina). A school visit was held online with the Japanese School of Qingdao.
A total of 340,000 students in 2,253 schools have had classes with teaching materials provided by the program from its start in 2011 up to now. Questionnaires given after the program show a high level of satisfaction among both teachers and students for the materials and the school visits. Replies indicate that it is beneficial for making students aware of the need to think about future paths and career choices and making changes to their behavior.
In a questionnaire of 29 employees from human resources departments in various operating companies who joined the program as school visit teachers in FY2023, over 90% said it changed their thinking regarding their job and how they work, and that participating in the school visits was a chance for them to take stock of their jobs and reconsider the purposes of work.
Others commented that it gave them a fresh outlook on life and that they felt greater awareness of themselves as a member of the Panasonic Group.
