It was a major news story. Fukuoka Girls’ High School has begun considering a move toward co-education.

NHK Fukuoka: “City Fukuoka Girls’ High School to become co-educational in 2027; all public high schools in the prefecture to be co-ed.”

KBC: “Consideration of co-education for Fukuoka Girls’ High School; if implemented, there will be zero public girls’ high schools left in the prefecture.”

I had the honor of serving as the chairperson of the city’s expert committee tasked with reviewing the status of municipal high schools with specialized departments. We engaged in discussions from various perspectives with experts from multiple fields and ultimately submitted a proposal recommending a shift toward co-education. We provided suggestions on the future of high schools with specialized departments, considering the national trend of such schools struggling to recruit students and transitioning into comprehensive programs, the track record of Fukusho High School in Fukuoka City successfully operating as a comprehensive high school, the fact that many departments at Fukuoka Girls’ High School have an applicant-to-seat ratio below 1.0, and the need to respond to rapid changes in societal conditions.

While the City Board of Education provided an explanation to the city council, this news somehow leaked about a week prior. Several television stations contacted me for interviews, but I apologize for being unable to accept them. Even if I had accepted, there wasn’t really anything I could have said… The expert committee merely summarized its findings as a “proposal,” and it is up to the City Board of Education and the members of the City Council to make various decisions in the future based on the contents of that report.

However, one thing to be cautious of is that while “co-education” stands out and draws significant attention, I believe that is merely one step in a process—the essence of the matter lies elsewhere. In fact, the report includes points other than co-education. By becoming co-educational, the pool of applicants will naturally increase since non-female students will be able to apply, but if the school itself does not transform into an attractive institution, the same issues will likely recur. We must make the school one that stakeholders—students, parents, and junior high school teachers—find truly appealing.

Fukuoka Girls’ High School has specialized departments such as Fashion Design, Childcare & Welfare, Food & Cooking, Lifestyle Information, and International Studies, and I believe these are very exciting contents. The question is how to align these with the trends of the current era, how to position them, and how to develop them into a curriculum and classroom lessons. It is necessary to reconsider the core concept of what kind of human resources we aim to cultivate and perhaps create something similar to the “three policies” found in universities. Furthermore, learning centered on specialized departments is highly compatible with inquiry-based learning. Since Fashion Design, Childcare & Welfare, Food & Cooking, Lifestyle Information, and International Studies are all closely linked to society, I believe that conducting cross-domain inquiry learning that blends these with subjects like Mathematics, Social Studies, Japanese, English, Science, Arts, and Health & Physical Education would lead to extremely interesting classes. For example, the initiatives by Z-kai in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s “Future Classrooms” demonstration project serve as excellent references for cases involving specialized subjects x other subjects x ICT. However, how to integrate this into regular classes and how to handle an already tight curriculum will require careful consideration. Despite these challenges, I think it will be a very useful reference. The content handled in specialized departments is reality itself—social issues so closely tied to society, and in some cases, local regional issues—so combining these issues with academic subjects for consideration would result in excellent learning (of course, this depends on the lesson design).

In the Yamada Lab’s research, we have conducted STEM-style lessons that combine Geoscience x Biology x Chemistry x Mathematics x Geography, and inquiry-based lessons on infectious disease prevention that combine Biology x Health. Learning outcomes improved, and we used a data science approach to examine what perspectives should be prioritized in lesson design. Those lessons felt full of potential. I believe that by utilizing such approaches, we can create better lessons, curricula, and schools.

This is not just about the level of turning a girls’ school into a co-ed school; we must think about how to design learning spaces in a society where information is readily available via smartphones—and even generative AI (which is just another app)—and where people can take action immediately. We must identify what will become the key competencies and combine them with academic subjects and cross-disciplinary lessons to refine them over three years; there are various approaches, and it will surely be a major task to be addressed.

Up until now, we have conducted practical research on data-driven education in collaboration with the Fukuoka City Board of Education for municipal high schools. Even if it is behind the scenes, I would be happy to help in any way I can toward fostering human resources who will support the future of Fukuoka and Japan.